Harry Potter and the Freedom of Flight
by MountainRose
Summary: At 11, Harry Potter is about to be set free. Neglected and weakened by his relatives, once his parents' old crew have him, they are not going to let him go back. Strongly AU, Sci-Fi, Mentor!Snape,
1. Upheaval

_AN: Welcome to Freedom. This is set in a vastly different world to that of the original books and most fanfictions, you have been warned. There will be space flight, faster than light travel, piloting and have been warned_

_Come with an open mind, there may be some ooc elements; living in a different universe has changed our dear friends a little! This is Mentor!Healer!Snape and firmly alternate universe; magic is different, but importantly it is still here. I hope you enjoy teasing out the logic. _

_Warnings: Sci-fi, pleasant!Snape, sick!Harry, Mentions of child neglect and abuse (largely cannon),_

_Disclaimer: I make no money and own nothing you recognise. PM me if you wish to use any of my concepts, you'll know what I mean, and I'll be thrilled to have someone on board. _

_Enjoy and Sky Speed. _

_Rose._

* * *

><p><em>Chapter one: Upheaval<em>

"Admiral, we have incoming jump, coordinates: Alpha three-three-two, Echo twenty; Solaris relative. Visual in three... two... one."

A large blue and red flash to the left of and just above the Poseidon's prow showed where the new ship was jumping in and the Admiral smiled, resting a hand on the reporting officer's shoulder.

"_PPZZZ... This is Transport Hotel Echo niner one, requesting docking permission. It's good to be home."_

"Roger that, Hotel Echo! This is Poseidon flight control; it's good to see you. You are clear for loading bay landing, authorization: Lemur, Foxtrot, Yankee. Repeat: Lemur, Foxtrot, Yankee."

"_kkssst... Copy, Lemur Foxtrot Yankee. Coming in nice and slow for a fore-aft landing. ADS is online and bringing us in."_

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

One month, two weeks and three days prior to the arrival of the Hogwarts Express, HE91, into Battle Cruiser Poseidon's jump space,

Galactic Standard Time 14th July 1991,

Colonial Museum of Technology. District One, Sector Tango.

"MUMMY! Why won't it _move?_ DADDY, make it move!" Dudley's obnoxious whine didn't bother Harry anymore, but people were _looking_, which did. Uncle Vernon tried to explain that VCF's couldn't move without one of their freak pilots but Dudley's attention span had him running off to the next exhibit before the puffing, over-weight Vernon could say more than a few garbled sentences.

Harry was in no hurry to be near his hyperactive cousin and lingered behind, stepping up to the barrier. The shimmering, transparent blue energy field had small blocks of text explaining the nature of the exhibit floating on it.

"VCF, Visceral Control Fighter..." He read, looking up at the sleek white metal ship. The plating on one wing was slightly scorched and the metal was covered in dings and silver streaks where orbital debris had impacted on the hull and dented it or worn the paint off. "Capable of fighting both in atmospheric pressure and in vacuum... wow..."

Harry had never been off-World, nor had his Aunt, Uncle, or cousin, and he knew that if you left the planet you'd leave your soul behind, Aunt Petunia had said so. But still! He let himself imagine for a moment, climbing into the gel-filled cockpit and taking off, roaring high into the sky and away from here.

He couldn't help but grin widely; it would be so cool to be free!

His face soon shifted into curiosity when something began to hum intermittently... he looked around, slightly concerned that they might be about to have a power surge, like when Dudley had chased him around school and a power fluctuation in the barrier surrounding the playground had propelled him onto the roof. But no one else, even the attendant Uncle Vernon was talking to, looked like they had heard anything. He tilted his head to the side, trying to find the source and turned back to the ship abruptly. There! He stepped closer, leaning against the barrier with one hand. Sure enough, one of the lights in the cockpit was blinking on and off in time to the humming. His face lit up in awe as the hard shell covering the pilots seat pulled away like an iris and the gel filling the space rippled.

It seemed welcoming.

The barrier fell.

Harry took a step forward; eyes fixed on the screens flickering to life in the cockpit.

And promptly was pushed roughly aside, falling backwards, as Dudley charged past, yelling at the top of his voice again.

"DADDY, LOOK! Potter made it move!" Harry, shocked out of his dazed awe, looked around fearfully, wishing he could undo whatever it was he'd done before Vernon noticed. His Uncle was already charging towards the ship, though, his face puce with rage. Harry cowered, flinging his arms up over his head and felt a ripple that, though he couldn't say _what_ was rippling, felt rather familiar. No sooner had that happened than did Uncle Vernon run full tilt into the corner of the newly erected barrier. Dudley looked on, shocked, as the blue field rippled up all around the ship, as it had before, trapping him inside. Harry giggled a little; dropping his arms from his protective stance, as Dudley beat his fists against the barrier, looking frightened himself for once.

Then the alarms went off. The ship powered down, the barrier turned red and warning messages in orange began to scroll across it at shoulder height, a siren sounded... chaos.

Harry sighed and drew his knees up to his chest, resting his chin on the worn through knee of his jeans.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time they got home it was late, Dudley was cranky, Aunt Petunia was fussing and Uncle Vernon had gone quiet and an ominous shade of white. They pulled into the garage at around nine in the evening and when the motor cut out there was dead silence for about three seconds as Vernon, usually the first to move, sat peeling his death-grip off the steering wheel.

Aunt Petunia broke the awkward moment,

"Come along Diddums, let's get you some ice-cream." The great lump was sniffling and looking pitiful for all he was worth after his "traumatic experience" and Harry sighed, quietly as he could, and got out of the car before Dudley's considerable weight moving around could jostle him too much. He held the door into the hall way open for Aunt Petunia and his cousin; he didn't really want to walk in front of Dudley right now, just in case he got off a kick or something. He forgot that this meant he was at Vernon's mercy instead.

_Oops._

His Uncle's beefy fist closed around the back of his neck and Harry felt all the hairs down his spine stand on end.

"Don't think for a minute that you're getting food tomorrow. Not after this!" The fist started jerking him painfully from side to side and Harry had to reach up and hold onto Uncle Vernon's fingers to avoid falling over. "Get in your cupboard, Boy!"

He loosened his grip on Harry's scruff and pushed him towards the cupboard under the stairs, making Harry stumble.

"Yes, Uncle Vernon..." he mumbled, shoulders slumped,

"And no more of this Freakishness! It's bad enough that you're parents had to go get themselves killed, you hear me?"

"Yes, Uncle Vernon." Harry gritted his teeth against his futile, angry tears. He was _hungry_, they'd made him stay in the car when they had stopped at the fast food place on the way home and Dudley had commandeered his lunch, under Petunia's watchful and satisfied eye, so he hadn't eaten in hours already! For a ten year old, this was, of course, the end of the world. Harry was used to the world ending on a regular basis so he ground his teeth, ignored the comment about the parents he had never known, and went to his cupboard.

The first letter arrived three days later.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

GST 17th July 1991,

Number 4, Privet Drive, District One, Sector Sierra.

The Cupboard under the Stairs.

Harry Potter sat in near total darkness on the cot in his cupboard. He had been let out to cook breakfast in the last two days but he knew he was still in trouble for the 'Incident'. His Aunt and Uncle had made it perfectly clear that it was _all_ his fault so he was only being allowed out for chores. He'd gotten a bit of breakfast and an orange after he'd made lunch the day before so he didn't feel like he might fall over but he was still too hungry to sleep for long. So he sat in the near-dark playing with the broken soldiers he'd filched from the bin. Their holographics were fairly banged up, all four flickered and one had even lost the red and green parts of the projection so it was just a blue ghost of a guy holding a rifle. Dudley had run over them with his toy tank. Repeatedly.

Harry had managed to get these ones back working though, by fiddling with the batteries and in one case pushing the little lens back into place with the arm off his glasses. He was pretty proud of the achievement, though he knew to hide them from everyone. At least he had a little bit of light in here, now.

The blue soldier was just tragically failing to save a comrade from falling off a cliff, by virtue of being a ghost and having no body, when he heard his Aunt clattering down the stairs, her high heels making the most horrendous racket. He quickly turned the little holographs off and hid the bases under his pillow, sitting back so that the light coming through the door wouldn't blind him when she opened it.

"UP! Get up! You lazy, useless boy, UP!" Her voice was pretty piercing at the best of times, even through the metal hatch. It slid open with a hissing sound, letting harsh artificial light into his cupboard and making him blink, even in the shadows.

"Yes, Aunt Petunia." He shuffled forwards as slowly as he dared, squinting and trying to get his eyes to adjust. The world was still fuzzy but at least his eyes didn't hurt by the time he had climbed out of the cupboard. He pulled his glasses off the shelf just inside the hatch and hooked them over his ears as he followed his Aunt to the kitchen. The refracting barrier stretched between the ear and nose pieces shimmered gray then silver for a second before settling clear and round into lenses and correcting his horrendous eyesight. They didn't work as well as they used to, when they'd first adjusted to his eyes, but they still helped. He nudged the frames up with his knuckles and rubbed his eyes before opening the storage cabinet and reaching inside for bacon, eggs and butter. Each container was at a slightly different temperature under his hands as he picked them up and put them on the counter. The packaging kept them at their ideal temperature to keep them from spoiling.

"Eight rashers and five eggs, get too it! And don't you dare burn anything!" His Aunt shrieked as she clattered around, laying the table. He sighed and got the two heavy frying pans out and stuck them on the induction coil on the counter. The colour spot quickly glowed red and he poured in oil, added bacon and got to cracking eggs.

The smell of frying pig brought a flying pig down the stairs. Harry's pun made him giggle a little and fortunately Aunt Petunia was fussing over the over-weight lump of lard and didn't notice. He watched the bacon carefully, turning it over with tongs every few minutes before turning it out onto a paper towel and leaving the pan to cool on the draining board. The eggs went straight on the plates, two each for the 'men' of the household and one for his Aunt, Harry felt sorrowful that they weren't scrambled so that he could nick some... He delivered the plates to their respective recipients, taking great care because the plates were heavy, large and awkward, especially for a ten-year-old.

He didn't want to watch them eat when he was so hungry so he retreated into the kitchen to make himself some toast. There were only three chairs at the dining room table. There had only ever been three chairs.

He turned to the counters while his bread was toasting and began to clean up the specks of fat that spat out of the pan every time you fry something. Noise blared from the screen that shimmered up from the counter between the kitchen and dining room, showing some ground-race or other that Harry had very little interest in. HE would much prefer to watch the VC tech races but his Aunt disapproved strongly of anything VC, saying it was only one step away from going off-planet and that she didn't want little Duddykins exposed to such freakishness. Harry thought that she was probably even worse now, since the Incident. Dudley was quite happy to go along with his mothers' dislike, especially since it was something that Harry _did_ like.

Just as his toast popped, Uncle Vernon yelled for Harry, and he resigned himself to cold toast again.

"Boy! Go fetch the post." His Uncle didn't even look at him, just gestured with his fork.

Harry shuffled off to get Vernons' data pad from the living room, turning it on and telling it to download the day's mail. He took his time going back, it was best if Vernon had his mail the moment the little computer was in his hand, so Harry idly watched the data packets come in, named and labelled:

'V. Dursley, Grunnings Plant and Manufacture,'

'Petunia, dear, have a look at this'

'Mrs Dursley, can Dudley come over?'

'Harry Potter.'

Harry stopped dead in the doorway to the kitchen. He had _never_ gotten mail. Ever. There was no label on the file, just his name and a symbol of an arrow-like object streaking across a field of three stars. He lifted a finger to tap the file but Uncle Vernon snatched the pad away from him,

"Don't go reading other people's mail!" he snarled, looking like he might turn puce again if Harry wasn't careful.

"Sorry, Uncle Vernon, but there's something there for me!" he took a step forwards reaching out as if he might take the pad back and read his letter. Vernon was not impressed and yelled in his face, spraying him liberally with saliva.

"You filthy little liar! Who would want to send mail to you? You useless, pointless brat!"

"I'm not lying, look! It's right there!" Uncle Vernon glanced down, sneering, but the expression disappeared when he scanned down the list and spotted Harry's name. He went very, very pale.

"Go to your rooms." He said with quiet fury, he looked up when Dudley didn't move; his eyes fixed to the video screen. "Both of you!" He snapped. Dudley looked about to complain, but the look on his fathers' face made him squeak and leg it out of the room. Harry backed away more slowly, still wanting his letter, but it was clear Vernon wouldn't budge. He went to his cupboard and fumed in private.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The next morning, something very similar happened, only Harry had the Pad snatched from him much more quickly. Uncle Vernon deleted the message in moments.

The morning after that, Harry's Uncle deleted his entire correspondence without looking at it.

The messages did not stop coming.

After the first week, Vernon destroyed the data pad that collected their mail.

Three days later, the letter appeared on the house's video system. It kept doing so every day subsequently.

Uncle Vernon oscillated between maddened rage and a bizarre, calm insanity. Harry frequently overheard him and Petunia talking about "those freaks...!" and then cutting off when they noticed that Harry had entered the room.

Dudley complained constantly about not getting mail from his friends and being unable to watch vid broadcasts. His Aunt often forgot to set Harry chores, especially if he sat quietly in the garden, out of the way. That worried Harry more than anything else.

After breakfast on the 30th of July, one week and six days after the first letter, Uncle Vernon evacuated the house. He told Aunt Petunia and Dudley to pack their things, told Harry to put together some food and told them all to get in the car.

By lunchtime, they were a mile above the surface, amongst a stream of traffic with Uncle Vernon honking at the people in the lane above them, who were driving a little close; the backwash of their propulsion engine was setting off their proximity sensors. Harry handed out the sandwiches he'd made to keep Dudley from screaming and settled back into his seat.

Already they were further from Privet Drive than he had ever been before; he'd only crossed sector boundaries once before, on the way to the zoo, and this time they'd crossed over four! Uncle Vernon had even said that they were going to the _coast! _That meant leaving District One! Harry had never seen the sea...

He didn't really pay attention to the fact that he'd be eleven in twelve hours, but it did dampen his enthusiasm a little bit.

By mid afternoon they had made landfall again, coming down from the sky highway to run on tarmac again and the roads were much quieter. Their propulsion engine made the occasional crackle of electricity when they passed over a wet patch of road but that was about it for noise. Even Dudley was subdued; Harry thought that he looked nervous, even. They'd passed over the city boundary hours ago and he knew that his cousin had never been out of the city, District 1, also known as London. He didn't like the change, apparently. Harry, on the other hand, thought it was awesome. And _GREEN_. He'd never seen so much green in all his life, there were trees, even; actual wooden ones!

Harry saw a field of pigs, all happily rolling in mud and eating gray slop out of troughs with great enthusiasm and almost pointed them out, but then thought that he might put Dudley off bacon, and then he'd have to cook sausages instead, which was much harder. So, he kept quiet, fiddling with the end of the belt that held his trousers up and watching the scenery.

As it began to get dark, Dudley started to whine. And didn't stop. Harry had already run out of food to give him, and Uncle Vernon was not about to stop before they got to their destination. Dudley started to cry in earnest.

Harry almost felt sorry for him, thinking that this was probably the first time he'd ever been _actually_ ignored. Harry knew how it felt.

Eventually, Uncle Vernon pulled into a car park and cut the motors. Dudley was still sniffling and got out of the car, quick as a shot, just in case his father decided to start driving again before getting him food. Aunt Petunia, looking a little green, got out too and, after a quick word with her husband, headed with the big lump of lard that was her son to a nearby corner shop. Vernon went to talk to a figure standing out of the street lamps in the far corner of the lot and Harry was left alone in the car.

He was, admittedly, a little angry now. He knew that his Uncle had deliberately broken their data pad and had gotten them out of the house so that Harry's letter couldn't get through the vid system and now they were in some small town, he had no idea where, _and_ it was too dark to see the sea, _and he wasn't going to get his letter._

He wondered how his letter had got into the vid system in the first place; that had never happened before. Maybe people only did that for really important letters? And _if_ the letter was really important, and _if _it could get into the vid system, what was stopping it getting into the _audio_ system? He turned off the seat restrainer, (which Dudley never wore, but Harry would prefer _not_ to die if they crashed, thank you very much) and leaned between the two front seats to try and turn on the radio. He stabbed the touch plate repeatedly, but nothing happened, the module was completely powered down. Harry sighed heavily and slumped back in his seat, pouting a little bit.

Aunt Petunia and Dudley got back before Vernon, a bag of dehydrated "Just add water, we'll do the rest!" meals in hand. Dudley had chocolate smeared around his mouth and on his fingers, and had stopped his annoying whining. They got back in the car and the whole thing rocked when Dudley sat down. Harry spotted Vernon coming back first, since he'd seen were he'd gone in the first place, and saw something that _really_ worried him. Uncle Vernon tucked something into his jacket pocket that was long, oblong and had an intense but dark blue light on it.

It looked like a gun.

It probably _was_ a gun.

Uncle Vernon was planning to _shoot_ someone?

Harry's train of thought steamed through the station marked 'fear' and settled in for the long haul.

Uncle Vernon ordered them all out of the car, telling them to get their things. Since Harry didn't have any 'things' and his soldiers were already in his pocket, Aunt Petunia ordered him to carry the corner shop bag. He noticed that there were three adult meals in it, and one tiny child's meal. He couldn't say it wasn't expected though, and he sighed.

"Come on, you lot! This way, no more... freakishness, no more _letters_!" said Uncle Vernon, as if these two things where the same. Aunt Petunia looked rather worried as they followed Vernon down a slope, towards something that made a hissing and roaring noise. That was almost as frightening as the fact that _his Uncle had a gun_. Almost.

As they passed, streetlamps detected their movement and flicked themselves on, shedding harsh light on the steps in front of them. When they reached the bottom, Harry realised that it wasn't some sort of monster or giant machine that was making all that noise, it was _waves_, they really had made it to the sea... Vernon didn't pause though, so Harry had to make a few extra quick steps to catch up.

He led them to a small boat, a ferry really, slightly square and hooked onto ropes that led away into the darkness of the water. What struck Harry was that nowhere was there the glow of a light or anything that looked a motor on the thing. As they got closer he realised that it was made out of wood! Harry couldn't believe it was floating, let alone that it would take them anywhere... it really should have been in a museum.

Vernon climbed in without hesitation, the rest followed, and Harry crossed his fingers in hope that they would survive.


	2. Revelations

_AN: Thanks you for your kind reviews, and feel free to point out any errors you see; this isn't beta read yet and my proofing isn't infallible. I think I'll be updating every Saturday and Wednesday, from now until the end of Part One, look forwards to it!_

_Enjoy, and Sky Speed,_

_Rose._

_Chapter Two: Revelation _

That night, sitting in a hut on a tiny island, devoid of power, computers or heat, they ate the self cooking meals, tried to set fire to the wrappers, then gave up and went to 'bed'. Harry was stuck with the floor, but it wasn't too bad. He made sport out of watching a spider looking for and chasing little bugs in the dark. He was pretty sure Dudley couldn't see in light as bad as this, so he felt safe letting the little arachnid crawl over his hand. Eventually, Dudley's watch clicked 'round to midnight, glowing blue briefly as it switched from having a face full of little segments of time to being empty, with one slowly filling in.

Harry blew gently on the spider so it rolled off the back on his hand and onto the floor, were it rolled across the dirt for a bit, (dirt! Not only was this place made of wood, but the floor was made of SOIL?) Before springing its legs out and scuttling away.

Harry shuffled over to the drawing he'd made and bit his lip. It was a bit sad, really. In any case, he blew at the dust near the far side of the drawing until the 'candle flames' had been obliterated.

"Happy Birthday Harry." With that, he rolled over to go to sleep, pulling the musty, slightly damp, blanket around his shoulders.

_thrumThrumTHRUM _THRUM BOOM!

Harry sat up abruptly, dropping the blanket, as light sliced in through the windows. That sounded like a vertical Lander! He'd seen a vid of one once, at school, they had downwards pointing propulsion engines, like cars, only incredibly powerful and they could land on under three square meters, and, and...

The information Harry had picked up rushed through his mind, saving the best until last, _they were VC'd_. Like the ship at the Colonial Museum, like the barrier that Dudley had gotten stuck behind. Needless to say, Harry was very excited. So excited, in fact, that he didn't notice that he was also terrified, at the same time, not until the door was knocked down, with a noise like a small cannon. He scrambled to his feet and crouched near the sofa, watching the door and trying not to breathe too loudly.

Harry stared in open mouthed shock and Dudley screamed and leapt gracelessly over the back of the sofa to hide when a very large silhouette filled the empty doorway. His Aunt and Uncle burst out of their 'bedroom'; Harry realised what the gun was for, then.

The blue light glowed brightly then narrowed to a beam that his Uncle aimed waveringly at the newcomer's chest.

"Don't come any closer!" Vernon yelled. When Harry looked up, he realised that Vernon's face was going puce again.

"Here now, no need fo' tha'!" the newcomer filled the entire doorway, Harry realised, and only small shards of light could be seen around him. He had to _duck_ under the lintel, even, he was HUGE! Harry, being newly eleven, watched in awe. "Oh, I'd better be fixin tha' now too..." Easy as picking up a pie, he leaned down and picked up the door he'd knocked off its hinges and put it back in the hole.

"Get out, Get out! We don't need your kind here!" the way his Uncle said 'your kind' reminded Harry of the innumerable times he'd been scolded for his freakishness and he cocked his head at the giant with the blue dot on his chest.

"Tha's quite enough on tha', I reckon. Put t' gun down." Now that Harry could see the man's face he realised that he _couldn't_ see the man's face because it was _covered_ in beard. Even his eyebrows looked like beard!

"I will not, this is breaking and entering, no one would think twice if I shot you!" Harry was aghast at that, he didn't like his Uncle, but he hadn't though he was a killer, and that targeting dot was still over the trespassers heart!

"Wi' wha gun?" That shut Vernon up. He glanced down at the weapon in his hand, opening his mouth and frowning, and was about to reply when the blue dot vanished and sparks erupted from his hand. He squealed like a pig and his hand jerked reflexively, dropping the sparking object to the floor, were it sparked once more, and then died.

Harry suppressed a snort at the goldfish look on his uncle's face, though he still felt a little nervous about the massive great big man in the room who could, apparently, fly a VC and explode guns with his mind.

"Now then, 'Arry. I go' a little something for ya." The strange man looked down at himself and started patting down his massive coat."I know i'is ere somewhere..."

"You know me?" Harry blurted out, without thinking, getting glared at by his relatives for it.

"O' course I do, 'Arry!" he said, delving into a deep pocket, "E'ry VC pilot out there knows o' 'Arry Potter. Ah, there we go, I mighta sa' on it, but i' should still be good." He pulled out a slightly crumpled box. "I's not jus' tha' though, I knew yer parents, lad. Mighty good friends they were." He handed over the box to Harry, who was trembling slightly. On auto pilot, he opened the box to find an only slightly misshapen cake, covered in brown icing and the words "Happy Birtdau" scrawled on top in large, red letters, the tail of the 'Y' had been smudged by the corner of the box, which had caved in at some point. It smelled wonderful, like chocolate and butter icing; Harry couldn't feel happier, or more confused, than he did right then.

"We've met, afore ye was old enough ta remember, couple 'a times. Me name's Hagrid, Keeper of the Codes of the Battle Cruiser Poseidon." Hagrid, pleased with his introduction and not caring much about what the Dursley's thought, settled his large frame onto the sofa. It creaked alarmingly and sagged under his bulk.

Harry looked up from his cake, absently closing the box and half wrapping his arms around it defensively. "You knew Mum and Dad?" Harry's voice was small and his eyes big and he took a step towards Hagrid. "You're a VC pilot?"

"Aye, and aye. Don't look so shocked! Ye be one too, after all. Ain't all that strange..." Hagrid was blushing as he said it but Harry wasn't looking. All he could think of was that phrase,

"I'm sorry Hagrid... you've got the wrong Harry... I'm not a pilot, I'm just Harry. Just useless old Harry." He held out the cake box, thrusting it back at Hagrid.

"You must be thinking of someone else." He felt like he was about to break into a hundred little pieces, finally someone cared about _a_ Harry Potter, knew about _his_ parents, but... it had to be someone else. His throat was closing up and he didn't think he could speak any more.

Meanwhile, the Dursley's were subjected to a most ferocious and terrifying glare before Hagrid turned back to Harry, gently pushing the box back towards him.

"You listen to me now, 'Arry James Potter! I was _there_ when your Ma gave you that name! I taught your Da and Godfat'er to ride their bikes! I carried you to these lummoxes after the attack... the night you got that scar." Hagrid took hold of Harry's shoulders, holding him firmly and wishing he'd look up.

"My parents died in an accident... they were drunk..." Harry protested weakly. "A bit of glass hit me..."

At that point, though Harry didn't notice, the Dursleys left the room, terrified of Hagrid's wrath.

"Oh 'Arry... no, yer parents... James an' Lily, they died in the war... they died protectin what they loved, protectin you." Hagrid found himself tearing up; the Potter's deaths had been hard, confusing, coming as it had together with the news of the Blight's retreat. "You forget now, what them useless mudders 've told yeh."

"Ye've got the look of yer father, and yer mother's eyes..." He tipped Harry's chin up with a beefy finger, "Yer the right 'Arry, 'Arry James Potter, and ye've been accept'd inta Poseidon Academy of Body Tech and Piloting. Ye name's been on the list since ye were born."

"No, I've never done anything! I'm not some amazing person! Stop teasing me!" Seeing that Harry was about to break into hysterics, Hagrid picked him up bodily and set him on his knee.

"I ain' teasin, Arry... ain nothing e'er appened whot cannae be explained? Ain't the barriers been weird, done summat jus cause you wan'ed em to? Or the screens?"

Harry fell silent, his head resting on Hagrid's shoulder; he'd never sat on someone before. _It feels really weird._ Now that Hagrid had put it like that, yes, there had been weirdly convenient power surges in barriers, like that time at school when he'd ended up on the roof. And every time, Uncle Vernon had punished him for it, as if it was his fault. Had he made these things happen?

"What 'a these planet-bound lumps been tellin ya 'Arry? Yer parents where VC pilots, damn fine ones, and yerself can be too, if ye work 'ard. I ain't expectin miracles, ye's only eleven, but I be _knowin _ye can do it."

Hagrid could feel Harry's bony frame shaking slightly against his chest and he gave his best effort to keep his anger at the Dursleys locked up.

"Ok." Harry was almost too quiet to hear over the sound of waves, he coughed to clear his throat. "Okay. I'll go with you." Hagrid gave him a tight squeeze, making his ribs creak,

"Ther's me boy, courage, lad, 's part a who ye are." Hagrid glanced out of the windows to check the weather, then at the door behind which the Dursleys were cowering, and made his mind up.

"Righ' then! Ye 'ave some o' tha cake, 'Arry. Appy Birthday and all tha. I'll be givin ye yer presen' tomorrow. Cannae fly out today." Hagrid lifted the too-light Harry again and stuck him in the corner of the sofa.

"The wind's picked up since you got here." Harry commented looking out of the window and thinking how hard it would be to take off while being blown about so much and remembering how the sky highways were surrounded by wind barriers.

"Tha's right, 'Arry. See, we'll make a pilot of yeh yet." Harry looked down at the box in his hands, feeling his throat close up a little again, exhausted by the revelations of the last half hour. Slowly he opened the box, took out a small piece and nibbled. It was the best thing he'd ever tasted.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the time he'd finished his slice of cake it was almost one in the morning, and Harry was getting beyond sleepy. He didn't want to close his eyes though, just in case Hagrid disappeared.

"What were they like?" He asked in a tremulous, anxious little voice.

"Well... first time I met yer Da... Ah, he was a rigt' lil monster 'e was! Teasing an' runnin' an' yellin about the loading bay." Hagrid shifted his weight around on the other end of the short sofa, making Harry's end shift around too.

"Can't say 'e was perfect but 'e learned though. From yer Ma."

"See, 'e were born up top, see? Now there's them that think low o' earth-born, specialy thems whos parents and gran'parents was born up there, who's Da's were born up there. Load o tosh if ye ask me! Yer Da' now, 'e din' know any earth-born till 'e met yer mum, an he loved her the day he heard her voice, so 'e forgot all abou' any earth-born, sky-born nonsense. 'e learned good and proper how ta be kind and gentle wit' that wat wa'n't as strong as 'e, all cause of yer mum.

She were such a good soul 'Arry! All the good anyone 'ad in em, came out if they met Lily." Hagrid deliberately didn't look at Harry as he spoke; he knew that they'd both break down if he did.

"They were summat to see, out in the black." Harry was briefly puzzled by that phrase but soon worked it out; his parents were pilots, VC pilots, and good ones, so the 'black' must mean space. "There wa'n't a turn James coul'n't make or a shot Lily couldn't hit. Heroes, they were, 'Arry. Saved a lot o' lives, 'tween the two o' them."

"Listen ta me 'Arry, they did everythin, _everythin_, they could to get home ta each other, but once ye were on the way, well... there wan't anything more important than keepin you safe. Not to them."

Hagrid finally looked at the tiny, frail child, finding brilliant green eyes full of tears. "C'mere," He muttered and gathered Harry up into his massive coat and holding him against his chest, feeling him shake again.

"Once we got word that t'enemy was after Lily and James an you, the whole Fleet couldn' 'ave kept 'em on the fron' lines. They backed off, wen' inta hidin. No one knew were they'd gone cept Admiral Dumbledore and a friend o' theirs by t'name of Peter. But... the Dark Lord, the leader of the enemy, he woul'n' stop for anythin'.

He got hold'a Peter, somehow, turned 'im against yer Mum an' Da'... we don' know how it 'appened, 'Arry... but when I go' te yer ship... well... Yer Mum an Da' were dead an the Dark Lord, V-Voldemort, was gone. Blasted out an air lock.

Summit 'appened, 'Arry, just when you got tha' scar, an' the war was over."

Harry was past the point of sobbing and had moved on to leaking tears and snuffling quietly. He reached up and touched the star-burst burn on his forehead, a silvery white, overly smooth patch of skin just over his right eyebrow. It had never meant much to him before, but now it had a whole new meaning.

"Tha's why yer famous in the sky, 'Arry, every one know's yer name, everyone will recognise yer scar. It's a secret from t' earth-bound, but I though' yed like te be warned." He could feel Harry's shaking subside and shifted about so he could half lie down, with Harry curled up on his chest.

"Thank you, Hagrid. Thank you so much..." Harry murmured still wiping tears away every few seconds. "Uncle Vernon said... he said that my Dad killed himself and mum 'cause he crashed on the skyway, cause he was drunk..." He felt Hagrid's hug tighten for a second, "The truth is worth crying, even if I am a boy."

Hagrin chuckled, "Now, boy's can cry too, much as they want! See, I remember, yer Da's firs' trip 'way from home, on the Poseidon, once all tha' excitemen' an energy was gone. Found 'im in me pumpkin patch, I did! Cryin on about his Ma and his ol' shipmates. Missed 'em summat terrible. But tell ye what? He felt right better after cryin' 'bout it. So, you cry 'Arry. Much as you want."

He felt Harry nod somewhere below his beard, then a long, expectant pause drew out. The tension in Harry's shoulder's and the nervous little movements of his hands made it obvious that he still had something to say.

"I... I always hated them... for dying and leaving me with... with _them_... I can stop, now, can't I?"

"Aye, lad. There's no call fer tha'..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry felt when Hagrid fell asleep; the man began to snore very quietly. It was like lying on one of Mrs Figgs' cats when it was really, really happy. After Harry's final question, they had lapsed into a slightly frightened silence, eventually relaxing and muttering 'good nights'. Harry had stayed awake a bit longer, thinking about the picture he now had of his parents, good and happy people, who fought a war to maintain the freedom of the people they cared about...

Harry had good dreams that night. Sad, melancholy, but good dreams.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry had guessed right, Hagrid's ride was a vertical-Lander. It was also incredibly cool. The 'ship' looked like a small airplane with steeply swept back wings and three large propulsion drives, one on each wing and the last, largest, in the tail. The fuselage measured around twenty feet long, though Harry just knew that it was big. Too big for the island they had taken refuge on. This puzzled him, until his eyes adjusted to the light and he saw the undercarriage. Made up of three collapsible struts near the propulsion drives, it had adjusted so that the craft was perched level, even though one of the struts was gripping an out crop of rock that was practically sideways.

Harry thought they looked a lot like bird claws.

The whole thing was gleaming white in the sun and silver were the paint had been scoured off by long use and lots of stellar dust. Harry was so enamoured by it that he didn't notice the tense conversation going on behind him until it got to the shouting stage;

"..not having him back, you hear me?" Vernon Dursley was getting progressively closer to the dreaded 'puce'.

"ye can' do tha'! Yer his only family, Mrs Dursley, 'es yer _sisters_ son. AN' he's only eleven." Hagrid was confused and beginning to get angry, "Yeh can' jus' throw 'im out!"

"We most certainly can! On no document anywhere does it say we have responsibility for that... that soulless _Freak!_" Petunia's long face got even longer and more equine as she turned her nose up at Hagrid, "Took it in out of the goodness of our hearts and all it did was eat our Dudley's food and take the clothes off his back!"

Hagrid opened his mouth, but was cut off by Vernon;

"I'll put up with his freakishness no longer! He doesn't belong here, with the normal human beings." He was getting more and more self-inflated as his statements wore on, and there was nothing Hagrid could do to stop it.

"That's right, if I ever see that brat again, I'll report him to the Authorities! I'll not have _that_ contaminating my son any longer!"

With that, the over-inflated, lobster coloured creature that Hagrid could not, in clear conscience, call human, turned and took his wife back into the hut. Hagrid felt sick at their treatment of his young friend, sick and deeply saddened. He gave a heavy sigh and turned back to his ship, and Harry. The boys shoulders had drooped and he looked at his feet rather than the ship, so Hagrid figured that he had heard at least some of the conversation.

"'m sorry 'Arry..." He really didn't know what to say, if Harry had been crying, that was one thing, but his resigned loneliness was something Hagrid hoped never to see again.

"That's OK, I never want to come back anyway." Hagrid could hardly believe that this tiny little child was only eleven; the look on his face was so old and wise and fragile.

"Righ' then. Time teh go."

Whatever Harry had been expecting it wasn't to be picked up by the huge pilot, swung into the air and deposited on the man's left shoulder. From his lofty perch he could see the top section of the fuselage, including the cockpit. Unlike the Fighter he had seen in the museum, the cockpit was air filled and much bigger, with two seats, one behind the other.

"Steps, Norberta." Hagrid said, getting an odd glance from Harry, who was clinging to his shoulder with both hands. When Harry looked back at the ship, 'she' had lowered the fuselage a couple of feet and a set of footholds had appeared in the side. They seemed very small compared to the size of Hagrid's feet, but he managed to get up with little difficulty. The glass that covered the cockpit apparently wasn't glass at all; it slid back into the rim of the cockpit like water off an invisible dome.

"Umm.. excus- ahh! Whoa!" Harry squealed and flailed a little when Hagrid plucked him off his shoulder, with _one hand,_ and lowered him into the back seat. Once there any further protests were silenced by the awe he was feeling.

"N-n-norberta?" he said, half to himself and half in question. Hagrid didn't hear as he rearranged his bulk and struggled to ease himself into the pilot's chair, but Norberta did. A vid screen popped up suddenly in front of Harry, showing a _lot_ of text. It was titled with "NOR 1.6.3. – The Norberta" and had a rotating image of the ship in flight, which changed into a schematic as he was watching.

"Oh _cool_." Harry poked the screen, making the image enlarge.

"Wha's tha' 'Arry? Ere, put this on." A small squiggle of black plastic landed in Harry's lap, ejected from a cubby in the wall of the cockpit as the clear dome slid back over their heads. Momentarily distracted from the ship's manifest, he picked up the object and examined it. It was vaguely ear shaped and looked a little like Uncle Vernon's car phone. Fiddling with it, he realised that the ear-shaped piece would fit nicely around behind his glasses arm so that the middle bit was inhis ear. Some more fumbling later had the thing fitted and a little 'bing' sounded in his ear.

"Hagrid? Why do I have a phone?" Harry asked, slightly anxious that Hagrid would ask him to call someone, since he'd never used a phone before.

"Tha's a HFR, little gadget so's we can 'ear each other once I've done this!" There was a click from the front, and the propulsion drives wound up with a noise much, MUCH louder than the sound his Uncle's car made. "High Freq'ency Radio. Good fer talkin, don' interfere with the ship. Don' go nowhere wi'out i'." Hagrid's voice came through the radio loud and as understandable as ever.

As Hagrid spoke to Norberta, flicked switches and spoke over the radio to some local flight control... thing, Harry looked around the cockpit with insatiable curiosity. After all, despite his mature attitude towards his 'guardians', he was still an eleven-year-old, VC obsessed little boy, he was easily distracted.

The inner walls of the cockpit were some black material that gave slightly when he poked it, the same stuff that made up his seat, only not as soft. At about Harry's shoulder height, Hagrid chest height, the walls gave way to the dome window. Looking out, Harry could see the sea, for the first time in daylight, and the hut and little ferry that had brought them out here. He couldn't believe how _silly_ his Uncle had been when Hagrid had just flown in, easy as pie! No one was in sight, not even at the windows, so Harry looked away, feeling a little down again. He was homeless now, he supposed. It was obvious that Poseidon would still accept him, or Hagrid wouldn't be taking him, but what about holidays? Did the Academy even _have _holidays like normal schools? Why did his relatives hate the idea of having a VC pilot in the family? Did he really not have a soul? Could he work for the school over the holidays? Maybe then he could stay there. He could cook and clean and everything, he'd work the hardest he ever had. Maybe he should beg Hagrid, and then he wouldn't put him in the dreaded _orphanage_ that Uncle had threatened him with! Or maybe the headmaster, did Academies have headmasters?

Harry's breathing started to speed up as he worked himself up, and his heart rate was increasing. A small vid screen popped up next to Hagrid's radar, floating insistently in front of the artificial horizon. As he peered at it, a readout of vital signs appeared, Harry's heart and respiration rates were in the orange and Norberta had put a label on them:

"Increasing. Cause: stress. Suggestion: distraction."

And had popped up a holographic letter with the Poseidon ship-and-stars symbol and Harry's name on it.

"Righ' ye are, lass. Give tha' lad his letter." Hagrid said, turning his earpiece off for a moment then back on to talk to Harry;

"'Arry, look at me, all fergetfull! Yer 'Ogwart's letter shud come up in a mo'." He watched the readout for a moment longer, seeing the numbers stop rising, before he had to go back to negotiating his flight path with the irritating Planetary Airspace Association. He kept half an eye on the screen though, until Norberta turned it off.


	3. Meetings

_AN: Chapter three, and Enter Severus Snape._

_Thanks to cara-tanaka, PreciousRaymond, capctr, Falcon's Hyperdrive and serenity444 for your encouraging words, _

_Enjoy and Sky Speed._

_Rose._

_I own nothing. _

* * *

><p>Chapter three: Meetings<p>

The letter was a little anticlimactic now; the first page was just a formally worded version of what Hagrid had already told him, that he had the capability to pilot VC's and that his parents had signed him up before they died. The mention of their Will made his throat tighten up a little but the fact that he was going somewhere where people had actually _known_ them was pretty comforting, in a strange way that made nervous energy buzz in the centre of his chest. He didn't think he could handle another story about them right now, though.

The second page was more interesting, and more distressing.

"Hagrid, where can you buy a 'Basic gel-ferm unit–#2' in London? Or an 'EMN Interface'! I've never heard of some of this stuff, and I don't have any money!" There was a note of panic in his voice; the things on the list were labelled 'essential', maybe he _would _have to go back after all!

"'Ere now, calm down. Yeh don' think yer parent's left yeh with nothin', did yeh?" Hagrid's voice wasn't nearly as good at calming him down as his hug had been, but it still helped, even if he didn't get what he meant just yet.

"They left ye' a vault in trust wit' the Swiss. Yeh not teh used it wit' out the Keeper o' Codes tho, its fer school stuff, an' pocket money." Harry, open mouthed at this news, "An' it just so 'appens that I's got yer Code, right 'ere."

What Hagrid didn't mention was that Dumbledore had said to accompany the Durselys to the Swiss Bank, Gringotts, and give them the key to spend the money on Harry's education. He'd assumed, despite the restraining order, that they would be reluctant to let Harry go and would meet Hagrid again in London to get Harry's things. They had assumed that Harry would stay with them for the last month before the Transport left for the Poseidon. That definitely wouldn't be happening now... Harry could stay with Hagrid if that's what it came down to, though zipping all over the country picking up Earth-born, children born with the ability to interface with the VC system who had no family history of VC training, wouldn't be the best way to spend your last few weeks on-planet.

Not to mention, he would sometimes need the second seat... He sighed, asking Norberta to bank slightly to avoid coming too close to Heathrow International Airport's main landing trajectory.

"And I can get all this stuff in London?" Harry sounded a bit blown away, he certainly felt like he would blow away, all these things were just a bit much for one little boy to handle.

"Aye, it's all there. 's only available ta VC'ers tho, so I ain't surprised yeh ain' heard of it." Hagrid adjusted course again. This was why he preferred orbital flying, fewer obstacles.

"And I'm _really_ allowed a pet?" Harry couldn't help but be tentatively excited at that one; he'd always liked the animals that he sometimes saw in the garden at the Dursleys.

"Aye, 'Arry. We'll be stopping at t'pet shop." Hagrid was looking forwards to that trip, since Harry's birthday present was waiting at the shop. "Yeh Da had a Snizzler, an' Lily had a cat, little tiny thing it was, liked zero-g."

"Right... ok..." Harry, a little overwhelmed, let the conversation lie, looking out of the dome at the landing 'Byran Air' transport that was going down to Heathrow below them, at a much lower altitude. Ahead but far to the left was the take off strip and he could see, if he craned his neck, the queue of ships waiting on a massive Sky Liner to perform its lumbering takeoff. He wondered how big the Poseidon was, if it could house the entire school, like it said on the letter. How big was the school, anyway? He didn't feel like talking anymore though, so he just left it, he'd find out soon anyway.

"'Ere, breakfast." An oblong object covered in plastic landed in his lap and he picked it up by one corner to examine. "Strawberry 'n... somethin, I reckon." Hagrid clarified. The bar was about four, five inches long and an inch wide. When he tore the plastic off, he discovered a sort of ...hardened gum, or resin, that smelt faintly of fruit with a layer of white that, when he licked it, tasted of yogurt. The first bite confirmed that the chewy, sticky substance was in fact edible and strawberry flavoured.

He gave a massive yawn after he'd swallowed the first bite. He settled back in his seat, idly opening the mail from "NOR 1.6.3." that was still flashing 'unread' on the vid screen. The file opened up to the same page of text as the Norberta had shown him before and he settled in to read about Vertical-Landers, and eat his breakfast.

He fell asleep around ten minutes later; it had been a late night.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hagrid brought Norberta down very softly when they reached their destination, the VC rack in the air above Vertic Alley. Getting out of the cockpit was easier than getting in, especially when the rear seat was installed, and he climbed down to the landing deck. Once there, he brought up a vid screen from Norberta's hull and opened a link to the Poseidon staff room. There was a lot that needed to be said.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Aboard Battle Cruiser Poseidon,

Current status: charging reservoirs. 120 Mkm orbit about Solaris, orbital time: 228 days, orbit commonly known as: 'just west of Venus'.

Current location of Senior Staff: Staff room.

Status: drinking tea.

"The virus the Twins left behind has finally cleared up. Honestly, Headmaster, those two...!" Their final prank of the year had been rather spectacular, changing all the networked vid screens a brilliant, lemon yellow. Dumbledore thought that that particular choice of colour had been a dip of the wing in his direction.

"I'm glad to hear it, Minerva," Whatever he was going to say next was forgotten as Severus, on vid link from the Leaky Airlock on Terra, interrupted.

"It's about time! The level of cheek displayed by those boys is without parallel. I do hope you found a sufficient punishment for them." The fierce professor was obviously busy; he was facing to the right of the vid screen, doing something with beakers and a colorimeter. When he next spoke it was obvious by his posture that he was talking to someone off screen; "No, this will _not_ do. If you are incapable of providing Grade 6 semi-liquid matrix that performs to function, the Poseidon will not be renewing its contract this year! ... Indeed. See that you do."

"They won't know what hit them, Severus, don't you worry." Minerva replied when he glanced back at the screen, looking amused at his brow-beating.

As Severus completed his transaction, the three remaining Heads of Departments discussed current housing issues that had cropped up with the replies from first year cadets. Things like animal and food allergies caused problems every year and took some negotiation to settle down.

Once Severus returned fully to the discussion, working alone on some substance or other and able to pay attention, they returned to more important topics.

"Minerva, the modifications in transponder signals issued by the Ministry will need to be programmed in before the Transport arrives, it will be on the new system." Dumbledore had got through the immense pile of files on his desk just that morning, it took far too much datawork to run a cruiser, he thought with a mental sigh.

"Of course, Headmaster, I'll get on it as soon as I receive the files, it shouldn't take long. Ms. Tonks and I completed the Comms overhaul in record time this year, the system's as clean as a whistle." Severus thought she looked rather insufferably smug.

"I intend to return before the Transport, if you would inform me of the new transponder code when it comes into effect, I would be grateful; I do not fancy Jumping to the wrong side of the star in the near future." He felt smug himself when that took the wind out of Minerva's sails,

"Of course, Severus; I will be putting out a bulletin." She took a sip of her tea, looking a little put out.

"Ah, that reminds me, do you have any further requests regarding this resupply, Pomona?" He said, waving an incubating dish containing an obscure microorganism at the camera.

"Well, there have been no changes since the end of term meeting; the garden is enjoying our orbit. However..." The slightly grubby Head of Hydroponics smiled slightly,

"Yes, Yes, if I find anything interesting, you'll be the first to know, I assure you." He looked amused, "The First year's vaccinations have come in, I will be picking them up this afte-"

"_KZZZSST_ Poseidon actual, this is Hagrid calling from the Norberta, come in." The interruption phased Severus for only a moment as he tapped his screen to link in to the new signal, frowning.

"Hagrid, this is actual; what's wrong?" Dumbledore replied, bringing Hagrid up on screen next to Severus so they could all see him.

"Ah.. P'fessor Dumbledore... It's 'Arry." The four Heads of Departments looked tense, there were no problems expected from that corner but... his family had always known that he would be coming to the Poseidon eventually; the Terran government would lose their hold on him then, and that could cause ..._problems_. Severus had more than suspected the brat would arrive, certain in the idea that he knew everything and could do anything but _that_ wouldn't give Hagrid reason to be concerned. An uncomfortable suspicion began to creep up on him;

"What is it man, spit it out!" he snapped, the effect only slightly dampened by distance.

"His family... they've disowned 'im. Fer being a VCer."

Shock. For a good few minutes, someone or other would try to speak, come up with nothing, and close their mouth again.

Eventually, Severus began to collect himself and he was the first to speak.

"And? There is always more, when this happens." His voice was weary; they had all seen this happen before, that it was the Sky's Golden Boy made it particularly bad.

"He's... thin. Light, small. An... an' e' looks old, like... like there ain' no fantasy left in 'im." Hagrid's voice was cracking,

"Disillusioned, I believe is the word you are looking for."

After that, they had to sit in silence for a time; eventually the Second in Command took a deep breath,

"But, she was Lily's sister..." Minerva mumbled,

"Family means little to people like that," Severus retorted, without his usual venom, "I'm sorry to disillusion you." His sneer fell flat and he sighed.

"I take it he is with you then, my boy?" Dumbledore asked, the twinkle gone from his eye.

"Aye, I promised I'd take 'im away from them bastards, an I kept my promise." Hagrids hand came into view as he punched something into the screen. A little box popped up in the corner, showing the sleeping Harry, glasses askew, cheek resting on his restrainer, fast asleep. Since they could all see his face, he felt it necessary to elaborate;

"'e's got 'is Ma's eyes." Severus had to turn away from the screen then, just in case his face did something embarrassing. He was thin and pale and pitiful and _his best friends only son_. How could he not be moved? He could hear Flitwick begin to swear quietly, Sprout was practically growling and Dumbledore was utterly silent until Minerva began gearing up for a tirade of epic proportions

"We should have checked on him! I knew that Dursley was bad news... why I should like to give him a piece of my mind!"

"Thank you, Minerva. That will do; circumventing a restraining order is both illegal and dangerous." Admonished the Headmaster. "Severus, I believe we would all feel reassured if you could give the boy a physical, as you are both in Vertic Alley."

"Yes, of course... it will be limited; I do not have all my equipment here, but the sooner the better." The Headmaster could already see the wheels turning in his Chief Medical Officer's head,

"Very well, Severus, Hagrid, we will leave you to make arrangements. Sky speed, my boys."

"Sky speed, Admiral." Severus replied, switching off his screen. Hagrid lingered a moment longer,

"They di'n't even tell 'im how 'is parents died... said it were a car crash..." He looked like the shock was catching up to him a little,

"We'll look after him, Hagrid."

"Aye, 'Eadmaster, Sky speed." The vid window closed, leaving an Admiral, a second in Command and two Heads of Department feeling deeply shocked, with a healthy amount of sorrow and anger mixed in.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry woke up when Hagrid's large shadow fell over his face, blocking out the sun that had been keeping him warm.

"C'mon now, lad. We're 'ere."

He blinked against the light when Hagrid retreated; it hurt his eyes, and sat up. Norberta kindly released his restrainer and he pushed the bars back up to where he'd found them. He stood up carefully and looked over the edge of the cockpit for Hagrid. The man was standing on the ground looking up at him,

"Come over t' edge backwards an put yer foot there, like ye's climbin down a ladder." Hagrid pointed out the first toe-hold for him and he did as instructed, swinging one leg over and into the hold. Since he couldn't see where to put his feet, Hagrid did it for him, grabbing a hold of his heel and directing his feet to the right places. "There, that's far enough. C'mere."

Now that Harry was a couple of steps down, Hagrid could get a hold of him and lifted him down the rest of the way.

"Now then. It so 'appens that one o' yer professors is in t' Alley today," Hagrid explained as he brushed Harry down in a vain attempt to de-wrinkle his over-large t-shirt. "'E's just on t' vid, now."

Hagrid turned a floating vid screen towards them and Snape's face came into view.

"Mr Potter, good afternoon. My name is Severus Snape; I'm the chief medical officer aboard the Poseidon and I'll be teaching you Organic Electronics, next month." Severus managed to keep a straight and neutral face as he introduced himself, but it wasn't easy. Harry Potter should have been called Harry Evans; his eyes made him look so much like his mother. The striking resemblance to his father... well, it was easy to over look the messy hair and cheap glasses, suspecting and knowing what he did about his family.

"ni-" Harry coughed to clear his throat, he must have been asleep for a while, his throat was all dry. "Nice to meet you, um... Officer Snape?"

Severus wanted to smile; it was like meeting Lily all over again, only smaller. He didn't, but that was more a matter of principle than anything else.

"Students are asked to address teachers as 'Sir' or 'Professor', though 'Officer' is also correct." Severus glanced over to Hagrid's image, "Hagrid, I have a monopoly on a table here, perhaps you could join me for some lunch?"

"Aye, Severus. Tha' sounds grand, we'll be right there." Hagrid and the professor exchanged nods and turned off the connection. The Vid screen made a tone the dissolved into nothing. "Go tah sleep, Norberta, there's a good lass."

The ship shifted a little as her struts locked and she sealed herself off from the outside world. The dome slid up like water to seal the cockpit, the toe-holds vanished and even the propulsion engines had covers that slid across to protect them.

"Now then, lad," Hagrid took him by the shoulder and led him over to the edge of the VC rack where they had landed. "Welcome to Vertic Alley!"

Spread out below him was a long street of sparkling white, full of people in outlandish clothes and barrier and vid signs covered in moving, brightly coloured adverts. There were people on foot, people on flying bikes, there were even a pair of young boys racing down the street on hover boards!

A harassed looking man on one of the strange, flying bikes whizzed up past Hagrid and Harry, making him look up. The Rack they had landed on was a massive stack of landing platforms, each offset slightly from the one above around a central pillar, forming a spiral. As he watched, the sun caught on the wings of a heavy carrier, a ship bigger and less aerodynamic than the Norberta, as it took off, lumbering into the sky with the rushing biker on board.

"This place..." He looked back down into the street, watching one of the signs advertising 'Highest quality thermocouples on the market!' flash to a hologram of the product, "Is _awesome_."

Hagrid just grinned and led him down the stairs. They made it to the bottom before the questions started;

"Where are we going?" Hagrid opened his mouth to answer but got ridden over, "_That's_ the pet shop? What _are_ they?" It was damn good to see the enthusiasm in Harry; perhaps things weren't as bad as they thought... fingers crossed.

"We're goin to tha 'Leaky Airlock', 's a pub over there." He pointed to the nearer end of the Alley, where a large Hologram of a circular airlock was giving off a delicate plume of fake smoke. "An' yes. Tha' _is _the pet shop and they're chimera. Ye don't think any old animal can handle livin' in _space_, do ya?" Harry was about to protest that his Mum had had a cat, but got distracted by the gecko-mice and the fact that the _Academy was in space?_

"I'm going to SPACE?" Hagrid looked a little taken aback by that. "In a _month?_"

The shocked look on Harry's face was truly comical, Hagrid couldn't help himself. "o' course yer goin ta space, t' Poseidon is in orbit around Solaris ri' now." He pointed straight up, at the sun.

Harry appeared to go into shock, staring at Hagrid. He hadn't really processed the fact that he was being thrown out of the Dursleys yet, this was really too much. He was still chewing on that idea when Hagrid picked him up and sat him down on something. Harry just leant his elbow on whatever was next to him and plunked his chin down on his hand.

"Well, bloody hell."

All in all, he thought he was justified in his response.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Good afternoon, Hagrid. School business?"

"Aye, Tom. Jus' getting this lump 'is school supplies." He gestured with his free hand up at Harry, who looked to be miles away, sitting on Hagrid's shoulder and leaning on his head with his chin in his palm. Hagrid's other hand was fastened securely around Harry's legs so that if the boy suddenly realised where he was, there would be no falling and breaking of heads.

"You'll want lunch, then?" Said the old bar keeper, wiping dry a clean glass.

"Aye, we'll be with the P'fessor," He pointed over to Severus' table, unable to nod due to the lemur on his shoulder.

"Ah! I was wondering why he ordered three plates. They'll be over in a mo'." Tom jerked a thumb at his rather harassed looking daughters who were dishing out people's orders.

"Yeh really must hire 'em some 'elp. Yer too busy!" Tom waved him off with a good natured grimace and looked up at Harry again. His hands went still...

"Here, Hagrid... that's _him,_ isn't it?" Hagrid's expression went grave,

"Aye. They coul'n't keep 'im any longer." He said, his voice low to avoid attracting attention.

"About bloody time, I say... you look after him, Hagrid, you hear me?"

"Aye Tom, aye."

They parted and Hagrid began to weave his way between full tables towards Severus; Harry gave no indication that he'd paid any attention whatsoever to the conversation.

The black-uniformed Officer stood up as they approached, smirking. "You appeared to have made a trip to the pet-shop already, what is that, a parrokey?"

"Not a parrot!" Apparently Harry wasn't as off with the AI's as he'd thought. "You can put me down now, Hagrid..." He said, sounding faintly embarrassed. "Hello again, Professor Snape."

"Indeed, Mr Potter." Severus watched as Harry was set down on the floor, his feet taking his weight easily. He detected no tremors or signs of rickets, as Harry brushed himself down, though the boy seemed to be squinting a little. At least his skin was not jaundiced or visibly bruised, though he was probably anaemic. He held his hand out to the boy, "Welcome to the crew of the Poseidon, Harry Potter."

Harry didn't really know what to say to that. He imagined the Cruiser, an enormous edifice of metal, orbiting many millions of kilometres away, around their star and then tried to link the image to himself; he thought it was probably impossible. In any case, he knew what to do with the presented hand and grasped it firmly, even though his hand didn't _really_ reach around the Professors. He was released after a brief shake, during which Severus looked at him intensely, and sat down at the table next to Hagrid once the professor had seated himself.

By unspoken agreement the two adults gave Harry a bit of a break at that point, talking about things that he would either have no interest in or would not have the vocabulary to follow, freeing him to look around and calm down.

He had a chance to take a closer look at the strange clothes people were wearing; they all seemed to share something, though he hadn't worked out what yet. The professors black uniform seem to consist mostly of a coat that ended at around his knees and had an open collar, were his rank and insignia was displayed. He had two silver bars above a five pointed star, next to, what Harry now realised was, the Poseidon's insignia. Curious, Harry looked carefully at Hagrid's lapel and, sure enough though mostly hidden by beard, there was the ship-and-stars next to a lone five pointed star.

Glancing around briefly, he couldn't see any other ship-and-stars, though he did see a many-pointed star that could almost have been a snowflake with some letters superimposed over it. He was too far away to read them and he didn't want to stare so he went back to the mystery of the clothes. Underneath the coat, Professor Snape was wearing some kind of tight... roll-neck... thing... that looked too thin to be a jumper and was made of a strange, slightly shiny material. The neck was fairly high and a bit... weird and Harry could just see the cuffs at his wrists. As far as he could tell, Severus was just wearing normal trousers, though his boots looked decidedly military, with a thick sole.

He looked around again, realising that most people were wearing the tight shirty thing, and some people were wearing trousers of the same stuff. Most had a jacket, coat or jumper on over it. Harry couldn't imagine the thin fabric would be very concealing. He heard his aunt's voice for a moment, talking about 'decency' and shuddered.

_Right. If Aunt Petunia would think it was indecent, and she is all... weird about the whole VC thing and she's probably weird about this too, hence, I should ignore it. _

Harry realised that his line of argument was flawed, though;

"Um... Professor? What does 'hence' mean?"

The two adults looked at him is faint confusion since neither of them had used that word recently, possibly not at all in Harry's hearing.

"Why d' ya ask, lad?"

"Well, I just thought that... well, if I _think_ a word I should probably know what it means, right Professor Snape?" he looked at the dark haired man for confirmation, looking the more scholarly of the two, and was surprised to see a strange tension on the man's face. After a moment, the man brought a hand up to his forehead, put his elbow down on the table and leant forwards. His long, pitch black hair fell forwards smoothly and covered his face, and his shoulders began to shake. Harry was concerned that he'd broken him for a second until he heard him laughing.

"Yes, Harry. You probably should." He kept struggling inelegantly to avoid laughing too hard in public and Harry could see him slide his free arm across his stomach, like he had a stitch.

"Alright, sir, I'll look it up, later." Harry reached over and gently patted the man's elbow. This seemed to make it more difficult for him to restrain himself and Harry watched on with a kind of morbid fascination.

* * *

><p>AN: Meet Lily's Severus; you will find out why Snape is different, in good time, and more of him in the next chapter, which will be posted on Wednesday.<p>

A small competition for you readers!

You've already hears the good Professor Snape's new title, I challenge you all to guess the remaining teachers new titles. I warn you, some will be easier than others! Good luck and see you on Wednesday.


	4. The Doctors Office

_AN: Warnings for hurt/comfort in this chapter, as Harry's past with the Dursley's makes itself known. _

_Enjoy and Sky Speed, _

_Rose._

Chapter four: The Doctors Office

It took Snape a good ten minutes to calm down, during which time their food arrived. Harry fell on his with enthusiasm, despite not recognising some of the ingredients; he figured he'd find out at some point. About half way through the meal, during which Snape had tied his hair back, Harry realised what was so strange about everyone in the room;

"Ah! It's that Thingy! Whatsit, on the back of your neck!" He exclaimed quietly, with gestures. Harry could see now that he was looking for it, everyone, barring a few children who were younger than he was, was wearing a strange device around the back of their neck. Snape looked a little smug for a second, but it was gone as soon as Harry noticed it.

"You are very observant, Mr. Potter. Well done for not shouting it across the room." The professor turned slightly in his chair and showed the back of his neck to his pupil in the name of Education. "This is an EMN Interface."

The object consisted of an apparently flexible 'spine' that ran from the hollow just below the base of the skull down to where the neck turned into the back and four arms which wrapped smoothly around the back half of the neck. The top pair swept from the nape of the neck to just short of the jaw, mostly hidden by hair, while the bottom pair swept round from just above the tail end of the device, round into the hollow above the collar bone. Everyone, _literally_ everyone over the age of eleven was wearing one, even Tom, the old bar keeper.

Harry flushed slightly from Snape's praise, Hagrid was looking very proud too. "That's on my school list, isn't it?"

Snape turned back towards him, tugging his coat collar back up. Harry could see now, why he wore that strange shirt with the high collar, the EMN fitted snugly over the top of it, like they were part of the same system.

"Aye, tha'll be almos' our las' stop." Hagrid picked up his cutlery again, "Eat up, now 'Arry. Got a long day ahead o' us."

Snape had almost finished his food and looked pointedly at Harry's plate, raising an eyebrow. Harry didn't want to seem ungrateful so he spiked a slightly odd looking piece of meat, or possibly fish, out of his (probably) stew and stuck it in his mouth. Despite his initial enthusiasm for food, he'd about had his fill. Considering he had already had about twice what he usually had, he felt he was doing pretty well. He tried to keep eating though; he didn't want to get in trouble for wasting anything.

"EMN: Electro-Magnetic Neural Interface." This was definitely the Professor talking, rather than the man who had laughed so hard earlier, it wasn't unpleasant though, so Harry settled down to listen, occasionally posting food in his mouth.

"The mutation that allows VC users to use our technology is based in the central nervous system, around a particular chemical that our bodies make subtly differently than do standard humans. Do you follow so far?" Snape had pushed his plate away and Harry noticed that he hadn't finished his food. Maybe it would be ok if he stopped eating? He _was_ full.

"Yes sir, it's one of those... gene things, isn't it? And I inherited it from my parents?" Harry was glad, possibly for the first time in his life, that Aunt Marge was so obsessed with dogs. The fact that she was also obsessed with the story that the Dursley's had fed her about his parents and was convinced that Harry would have inherited their 'bad blood' was an overriding negative, though.

"Correct. So, when the human brain sends instructions about how you want your body to move they move down your spine; through your neck, down your back then out into your body. Significantly, these instructions are in the form of electricity. Now, this is the hard part,"

Harry was fine so far so he just nodded and leaned in a little, his dinner forgotten.

"The protein, the chemical that we make differently, causes the change in signal to be very noticeable from outside the body. Consider a house; the husband is in the garage when the wife arrives home, she shouts to tell her husband that she has returned. Now, some of that sound escapes through an open window and maybe a very quiet neighbour can hear her, so now _he_ knows that she is home too, as well as her husband. Perhaps their neighbour then looks over the garden fence to say hello, sending a message back.

"The EMN is the neighbour. It 'over hears' the messages you send your body, because of the different version of the protein, the open window, acting as an amplifier."

Harry felt a little bug-eyed now, he understood but it took serious effort. The analogy helped but... all the same...

Snape was looking at him a little searchingly so he tried to show that he understood;

"So... the machines can hear what you want them to do, through what you tell your body to do? But only if you have the gene and an EMN Interface." Severus could see another thought forming so he gave Harry a minute, glancing at Hagrid, who was looking proud as a mother hen.

"But..." _Here it comes, _thought Severus, "What about when I made the barriers go all funny? I didn't have an EMN."

"Ah, an apt question; return to the house analogy. If the wife shouts really loudly, perhaps using an amplifier, then it's not just the neighbour who's going to hear; perhaps it's the whole street." He leaned forwards on the table, reaching out and putting a hand on Harry's shoulder, "When you're very frightened, or angry, or want something very much, the amount of chemical your body makes increases, any signal sent then is very loud indeed." Seeing light dawn on Harry's face made Snape feel very satisfied indeed; becoming a teacher had not been his choice, but it certainly had its moments.

"So that's why it was so... weird, it was completely uncontrolled!" Harry exclaimed.

"Quite." Severus' smug little expression persisted as he pulled the tie out of his hair. "Are you finished eating? There is a little chore I must ask of you before I release you to your shopping." The look on Harry's face, full of curiosity, as he nodded reminded Severus so intensely of his friend Lily that his chest tightened for a moment.

"Hagrid, we'll be just upstairs, this won't take very long. Come, Harry." With that, Snape stood and swept away from the table with a quiet, military precision that Harry couldn't hope to mimic. Especially not in slightly ragged, very much too big, hand-me-downs. A brief word with Tom the barkeeper, during which a slightly cumbersome silver case was retrieved and handed over the bar to Snape, gave Harry time to catch up and follow him up the stairs. He was fairly curious about both the errand and the silver case, which looked rather like a toolbox, now that he thought about it. He was not, however going to push his luck by being overly curious. He'd already crossed that line once already, with the "Whatsit, on the back of your neck!" outburst. Instead, he decided to continue the line of questioning they had begun earlier.

"The shirt is a part of it, isn't it? The EMN." He said, half jogging to keep up with his new Professor as he strode down a hall on the first floor.

"It helps, yes. Though it is not essential; Hagrid does not wear one. Most gunners and fighter pilots do, it improves the exchange rate. Which means faster commands and more information, to you." Harry felt like Snape had forgotten that he was a kid for a moment there, it was a nice feeling, even though he'd made sure he understood afterwards.

They reached a door near the end of the hall, where Snape held a radio key to the sensor by the frame. It clicked open a moment later and they went inside. Harry's stomach fell a little when he realised that it looked like a doctor's office.

"Oh... you're gonna be my doctor from now on, aren't you?" Harry was a little afraid of doctors, Dudley had always cried and cried after coming back from one and sometimes the whole house wasn't allowed to eat for _ages_ after. He backed up a little, conflicted; on the one hand was Professor Snape of the trying-not-to-laugh and the explaining-complicated-things-so-I-can-understand and on the other was Senior Medical Officer Snape.

_He_ was much more frightening.

"Harry? What's wrong?" Snape took a step closer to him and he made an involuntary step back, jerking his hands up a little, as if to defend himself. Snape immediately backed off again.

_Well, that's unfortunate._ Severus thought privately,

"You don't need to be afraid; I won't hurt you, I won't do anything at all if you don't want me to." He kept backing away, "I'll just stay over here, for now. Ok?" Severus was glad when Harry nodded, but he kept backing away until he reached the wall,

"Should I call Hagrid to come and get you?" He let himself slide down the wall until he was crouched on the floor, leaning against the wall, trying to look as least threatening as possible. He was a little comforted that Harry shook his head;

"N-no. I... um, you see..." Severus could see him struggling with saying it, and felt the urge to prod him into getting his words out. Fortunately, he managed to resist.

"I've never been to the doctor but my cousin Dudley always comes back crying and screaming and it's horrible and then Aunt doesn't let me eat and Dudley screams even more because he's a little hungry, even though he always gets more food than me and then I get locked in the cupboard and..." Severus watched the horror unfold as Harry spoke, not noticing that the child wasn't breathing until he had run out of air and gone silent, struggling to take a breath.

He would later admit that he swore quiet soundly as Harry's frail little body began to crumple. He shot across the room to stop him from hitting the floor as he fainted dead away. Hoisting the limp body up against his chest, he sat down, on a chair this time. After a moment of struggle he had Harry resting with his back against his chest and his head tipped back against Severus' shoulder to open up his airways. His little chest was drawing in air in deep, oxygen filled heaves as he got over the panic attack, though his pallor said that he was probably a few minutes away from waking up yet.

Severus could feel Harry's heartbeat clearly against his palm, which was on the boy's chest to hold him up. When he shifted his hold a little he could feel the smooth bumps and dips of Harry's ribcage and all of him was bony; elbows, knees, shoulders... if, at that moment, he had known where the Dursleys were, he would not have been able to restrain himself. He had managed to calm himself down by the time Harry started stirring again, at least to the point where he could conceal it, and took great care to do so.

"Just keep breathing, Harry, nice and slow." He murmured when he felt him tense up a little. "Pay attention; I'm not doing anything, just breathe, Harry." He could feel Harry trying to comply, and it was working too.

"Thank you, Harry. I know you _are_ afraid." He sat up a little, prompting Harry to lift his head now that he was conscious. "I also know that you have no reason to be afraid of me, the worst I can do is give you a vaccination that I have already had myself."

Harry was sitting up under his own power now, looking dazed and frightened. Severus thought that he probably wouldn't understand much of what he said right now so he stopped speaking and lifted Harry up to sit him on the examination table. Another careful look at the colour of his skin and eyes and a surreptitious check of the temperature of his hands confirmed that Harry was most likely on the severe end of anaemic. Severus sighed, fixing anaemia the normal way could take up to three months, and the Poseidon would be undergoing manoeuvres in under a month and a half. The extra G-forces would be very tough on him...

Severus snapped his fingers insistently in front of Harry's face to test his orient-reflex; reassuringly, Harry's eyes snapped to the source of the slightly alarming sound both times.

"Harry?" the boy looked up at Severus, still a little dazed, but given that it was under five minutes since he had fainted, Severus wasn't too concerned.

"Yes, sir?" His voice was quiet and uncertain.

"Harry, what's my name?"

"Professor Officer Severus Snape. From Poseidon." Severus quirked a one sided smile,

"It'll do. Do you know where we are?"

"Yeah... upstairs from lunch, your... office?" Harry started looking around more alertly and a little colour returned to his face as his blood pressure returned to normal.

"That's right, you're here for a check up, but you had a panic attack. Do you know what that means?" He asked, fishing a little to see if Harry had ever had one before.

"Yeah, a girl at school had one once. I... fainted?" Harry looked mortified at that,

"Indeed, and I am utterly unsurprised by the fact. You're anaemic, your blood isn't carrying as much oxygen as it should." Severus felt decently sure that, by now, Harry was unlikely to take a tumble off the edge of his examination table so he went to fish out his penlight and an old-fashioned stethoscope. For now, he looped the listening device around his neck and pulled a stool round in front of Harry and sat himself down.

He hoped to avoid another panic attack by being matter-of-fact and avoiding the use of the word 'doctor'. By getting started now, while Harry was still a little sedated by his fainting spell, he hoped to get into the boring bit of the exam and replace Harry's false preconceptions with a real memory of a manageable, if dull, experience.

"Follow the light with your eyes, don't move your head." He covered the end of the torch with his thumb to make a small, glowing target which Harry dutifully followed.

"Thank you, now look straight ahead, there will be a brief flash, do not blink."

And so it went on, through the full battery of eye tests, both with and without Harry's corrective barriers, through a truncated set of neuro-physiological tests of nerve function and muscle strengths, ending up finally with a brief history;

"I have a number of questions for you that you may find difficult to answer or that you don't know the answer to. That is an acceptable excuse, I may give reasons for you to answer if you do not wish to, but I will not force the issue. Understood?"

He could see that his tactics were working; Harry didn't look dazed or frightened at all anymore, to his great relief. As he was probably going to be Harry's Chief Medical Officer for at least the next seven years, it was no small matter, even if Poppy took over the day-to-day affairs so he could teach.

"Yes sir." Harry nodded, having picked up on the same business-like strategy as Severus for getting through this. And so it began;

"Have you ever been admitted to a medical facility, for any reason?"

"Have you ever sustained an injury for which you should have been hospitalized, but where not?"

He skipped over the family history questions altogether, he admitted sadly to himself that he knew more about Harry's parents than the boy ever had.

The exam ended up taking around twenty minutes, between entering the office and leaving it again, during which time Harry trusted Severus enough to listen to his heart and chest and palpate his abdomen. It was a far cry from when Harry had first labelled him a 'doctor'.

Harry's comment as they were leaving said it all, really;

"My relatives were idiots, weren't they?"

"Most certainly, Harry. Complete buffoons."

He had even gotten a giggle out of him.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Just as they were about to leave the stairwell to return to Hagrid, Harry felt Professor Snape pause,

"Harry, there's something important about Medical Officers that you should know; anything you say to us is in strictest confidence. Only if your health is in danger, will the Academy's nurse or I allow anyone else to see your medical records and we will never recount anything you say unless you give us express verbal or written permission." He could feel Snape's eyes on his head so he turned and met his gaze slightly hesitantly.

"Okay." Harry blinked, he hadn't thought about that, he had just trusted Snape to use the information he was giving wisely, even though he had answered 'I don't remember' to a large number of them. "That's... good. Thank you."

Snape nodded, "I bring this up because it is both important and relevant. As your Medical Officer, I am going to prescribe you a high-oxygen re-breather, which will replace the standard re-breather on your list. I will also be tutoring you in its use, once you have undergone basic zero-gravity training."

"Because of my anaemia?" Harry asked as they started across the room, towards Hagrid's overly large frame.

"Correct. My point is that I will not tell anyone you have anaemia, casually. If you feel someone should know, you must tell them yourself or ask me to inform them." Snape had his hand on Harry's shoulder as they wove through the crowd of just-after-lunch shoppers; it was nice to know that he couldn't get lost. He gave the Professor's statement serious thought, he knew that he was hinting at something, but it took him a moment to work out what it was,

"Oh! Could you 'inform' the Headmaster for me? He probably needs to know, right? If I'm going to faint sometimes?" Harry felt a little bit of elation as Snape's little smug smile appeared.

"That would be appropriate, yes." Harry nodded and fell quiet until they reached the table.

"Hullo, Hagrid." He murmured, thinking about how to tell him about needing iron supplements and things, which Professor Snape had added on to the bottom of his list.

"Alrigh' there 'Arry?" Hagrid folded up his copy of 'The Aquaculturist Monthly' and made it vanish into his bulky coat.

Harry nodded; "I'm anaemic and I need to eat some more of certain things to build up my strength," He looked up at Snape for confirmation, he received a small nod, "But other than that, I'm fine." He made no mention of his panic attack; he simply did not want to think about it.

"Glad tah 'ear it, you do wha' t' Doc tells yeh and ye'll be fine." Hagrid was beaming at Snape as he stood up to join them, "Ne'er done me wrong, 'as Officer Snape!"

"Quite..." Snape looked slightly odd at that, thought Harry, but he couldn't work out how so he let it drop.

"Where are you headed first? I need to return to the bulk supplier for an hour, possibly a little longer." Snape asked as they headed back out onto the Alley,

"Well now... 's Gringgots firs' then Ma'am Malkins. Dunno abou' after tha'. Flourish an' Blott, then Aaron's maybe." Hagrid held the door open for the others as they headed into the mad rush of the Alley.

"In any case, I will be accompanying you to the Chemists' and to buy your EMN Interface," He said to Harry, with a significant look, before looking back to Hagrid "'Bing' me when you are done at the data-store."

"Aye. We'll be seein' yeh then." Hagrid and Snape gave each other nods and Snape squeezed Harry's shoulder briefly.

"See you later, Professor." And he was gone into the crowd.

"Righ' then. This way, 'Arry."


	5. The Alley

_AN: Welcome back. Had my first flame today. Let it be known that I don't appreciate them, if you want to tell me something you would like to see improved, I'd love to hear from you, but if someone's going to just insult something because they don't understand it then I am very disappointed in that person. On that note! If there's anything, terms, physics, science and so on that you don't understand, feel free to ask! I've got it all sorted out in my plan, but obviously some bits of it don't have a place in the narrative. I do enough exposition as it stands. _

_Enjoy and Sky Speed,_

_Rose._

Chapter Five: The Alley

Harry hadn't thought it possible that anything in this place could be dull but soon discovered that banks where banks, Swiss or otherwise, and hence, exceedingly dull. The only _interesting_ thing that happened was more unfortunate than truly interesting; Harry was recognised. A young woman with brightly dyed hair had exclaimed, upon seeing him and caused quite a stir:

"By the Stars, it's Harry Potter!"

She set off the entire room full of queues and people leaned and jostled to get a good look at him, the people next to him and Hagrid leaned over the ropes and asked for handshakes and crowded over him in a way he found distinctly disturbing.

"By Jove, it really is... it's the Boy-Who-Lived!" Said one man from Harry's right as he snatched up Harry's hand and pumped it vigorously, "Jolly good show, my boy!"

"Oh look, Marie! Isn't he simply adorable?" Squealed a teenager to her neighbour, setting her off too.

"Well, toss me out an airlock without a 'suit... he's so damned _small_," said a middle aged man from his left who peered through refractive frames like Harry's and loomed rather too close for comfort.

"'Ere, now! Back away, you lot. There's no call fer tha'!" Hagrid boomed as he drew himself up to his full and formidable height. The crowd did recede slightly, leaving Harry room to breathe without everyone and their pet trying to touch him. The remainder of the visit passed with excruciating slowness as the whispers hurtled around the room like gossipy snakes. The shrewd, scowling little man at the counter was overly brisk but efficiency made up for his attitude.

He was pleased to learn that he had more credit for 'school stuff an' pocket money' than he had any hope of spending any time soon but that was only a minor mitigation of the fact that standing in line in a high security building with no windows was _dull_ and that being stared at was _horrible_.

It took ten minutes, _after _having waited for what felt like ages, to activate the account and transfer access onto a credit card. Hagrid also insisted on getting come credit chips, saying that small vendors mostly used cash.

He didn't specify what 'small vendors' they might be visiting, so Harry wiled away a bit of time imagining increasingly outlandish things that they could be selling.

He had just finished working up an idea for a 'human-gecko' suit 'for all your zero-g needs!' when they finished up and headed outside.

"Hey, Hagrid? How do people get around when they can't walk?" Harry enquired as they made their way to Madam Malkins.

"Yeh mean in space? No gravity?" Harry was too busy watching the crowd to look where he was going so Hagrid pulled him back out of the way of the two hover-board racers they had seen earlier, who were being chased down by a pair of men in uniform with the star and letters that Harry had seen in the leaky Airlock on their breasts.

"Thanks. Yeah, I mean sure you could just float around but what if you got stuck in the middle of a room and couldn't reach the floor or ceiling?" Harry was leaning forwards to look after the two boys that had nearly knocked him over, looking very impressed at their hover-boards. They looked to be around thirteen or fourteen and had bright ginger hair. Once the kerfuffle had passed, the pair continued, going past a street vendor who was selling bowls of brightly coloured fish eggs.

"The Poseidon's decks are an alloy, containin' cobalt, tha's magnetic. We Stick ta it, like them gecko-mice yeh saw earlier, wit' booths an' sometimes gloves." Hagrid gave up on keeping Harry focused on where they were going and just led him by the shoulder.

"Like _geckos?_ That's so cool." Harry was buzzing now, excited by everything going on in the Alley,

"Well, I say tha'... but can ye imagine P'fesser Snape crawlin' along like a little lizard?" Hagrid and Harry shared a grin at that one; Snape had far too much poise.

"Nah, he makes floatin' look _good_."

Madam Malkins was a fairly small shop, with a refined and expensive sign that advertised high-quality and reliability. It was empty of customers when they arrived so the proprietor came straight over.

"Good afternoon Hagrid! It's a bit early for you to be bringing earth-born to my shop! What can I do for you?" She 'bustled' Harry decided. She was wearing a full dress over her weird... tight shirt... thingy, and the swishing noise as she crossed the carpet was definitely 'bustling'. He was a little intimidated by her; she was bearing down on them like an ocean liner...

"Aye, well, things al'ays crop up. Harry here needs his kit and we may as well get i' now. Full set, plus all t' every-day things." Hagrid patter Harry on the back, a little too hard as it happened, to nudge him forwards. He took a couple of steps and faltered again, since the seamstress was looking at him strangely.

"Harry... Harry _Potter_?" Her eyes flicked from Harry's face to his hairline, as if she was looking for his scar, then to Hagrid.

"Aye, tha' one. 'Arry, Ma'am Malkin here outfitted yer parents when they wher' bairns, same as you." The strange look he was getting made sense now, if she recognised him personally; she was solemn and serious, nothing like the people at Gringotts. Harry cringed a bit, he was short, skinny and fairly pathetic; he didn't want every one looking at him like that, and it had been horrible. It felt good to know that people who had known his parents were still around, that maybe, just maybe, there would be more people like Hagrid and Professor Snape, who wouldn't stare at the star burnt into his forehead as if that was the most important thing in the world.

"Yes... yes I did. Well. Mr Harry Potter, in my very own shop! It's very nice to meet you, Mr Potter!" She patted him on the shoulder, smiling warmly. Perhaps she wasn't as intimidating as he'd thought. "Now, if you'll just step up here..." She gestured to a stand and began to take measurements like height and waist. At one point she even measured the circumference of his neck. That made sense, he supposed, but why would she need to know the length of his foot?

"Now, you'll be wanting a military-grade conduction shirt... colour preference?"

She seemed to have finished measuring and stepped away, gesturing for him to follow, Harry was just glad she'd let him keep his shirt. Snape hadn't.

"Um... not really?" He said, hopping off the stand and following her to the back of the shop. Hagrid had settled himself in a chair near the front, taking out his journal again and settling in for the long haul.

"Well then. You have your fathers face shape and skin, which favoured dark reds... he liked burgundy." Harry snapped up that little tit-bit and stored it carefully in the back of his head.

"But your mother always looked best in green... and you really do have her eyes..." She was getting a little teary; Harry could hear it in her voice, so he stepped up to her elbow and gripped her sleeve. She looked down at him after a moment and he gave her his best smile;

"Thank you for telling me about them." His voice sounded very young to his own ears, since he was tearing up a little bit too.

"Of course, Harry. It's the least I can do." She returned his smile and turned on the clothes rack with a vengeance. "Right then! To work. Dark greens and a royal blue, I think... here,"

She pulled out two slippery-fabric shirts, one in a forest green and the other in navy blue. She held then up against each other, then against Harry's chest, and then began swapping out with slightly different shades. Most of the shirts were far too big for Harry, but he figured she was just looking for colours for now. Fairly quickly, they settled on a very dark and rich blue and the forest green. Harry didn't know why they needed two colours, since the shirts here were all one, but he liked being able to choose what he was going to wear. Once they had settled on colours, Madam Malkin looked contemplatively at the pile of 'hmmm... maybe's and pulled out a black and the burgundy.

She looked satisfied and Harry was beginning to get tired of fabric so he checked the time to see if it was time to meet Severus at the Chemists, it was not, and this seemed to spur the seamstress on;

"Oh, oh yes, of course, we must be getting on!" She chivvied him back towards the front of the shop, where her assistant was dealing with a mousey looking boy and an austere looking older woman.

"Now then, Mr Potter! Your things will be ready in about an hour; but I will not have you walking out of my shop wearing in these... things." She took him to a rack of more normal clothes, though he noticed that there weren't many t-shirts. Since most people wore 'conduction' shirts, he guessed that made sense.

"You choose trousers and a jumper now, it'll give me an idea what you like." Harry looked up at her pleadingly but she had turned slightly and was noting something on her data pad. He had never picked out his own clothes before but he at least knew the colour he wanted, even if Madam Malkin said that it didn't suit him very well. He found a burgundy pullover that he thought would fit, and that he liked, but didn't really know how to pick out trousers. When he showed Madam Malkin the jumper, she picked some out for him, looking a little tearful again.

Once he had changed she took him back to the front of the shop.

"You come back for the rest before you head home. Now I must get started!" She was all excited in that calm, I'm-not-at-all-excited, kind of way that adults have.

"Full academic dress uniform, everyday wardrobe... yes, yes. Off back to Hagrid now." She led him over to Hagrid and stood with them for a moment,

"Oh, but what is your pet? I usually change the uniform slightly to accommodate the student's animal."

Hagrid's beetle-black eyes lit up, "Now tha's a secret, fer now." He winked at Harry, "Lemme whisper it teh ye."

It took him a moment to work it out; Hagrid hadn't mentioned Harry's birthday since the night before and he had quite forgotten. Once he had, he felt overwhelmed and watched their exchange with a vacant, rapidly blinking stare.

Madam Malkin looked most approving, and smiled at Hagrid once he had finished speaking.

"Well then, you'd best be getting on to the Flourish and Blot; best get your texts. Off with you!" She shooed them out of her shop, turning back to make sure that her other customers were being served properly.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Once again thrown into the melee, Harry kept his eyes wide; trying to take in everything at once and occasionally fiddling with the cuffs of his new jumper. He wasn't used to ones that didn't either fall over his hands or fray considerably. He just let himself be guided by Hagrid's hand on his shoulder and visually investigated everything.

A vendor to his left was calling out loudly and so quickly that Harry caught maybe three in ten words. The wares on his stand were obviously meant to go off-planet though; they proclaimed such things as;

'Immunity Mug! Drink your morning Coffee, regardless of g!' and

'Increase the quality of your Air-Space, Use Oderifiers!'

The add-hock usage of capitals and fluorescent fonts was vaguely off-putting. The next stand down, set in the alley between two bigger shops, (one of which was also a clothes shop, though it looked less prestigious than Madam Malkins) was another fish related one, only this time the wares were both fully grown and very much alive. They were happily swimming in loops within their cylindrical tanks, scales throwing off the sunlight in flashy sparkles. The owner looked much more laid back than the other one, and greeted Hagrid as they passed. Harry resisted doing a double-take, because it wasn't possible that the man was gray skinned, and if it _was_ then it would be even more rude to stare. His signs were written in dark blue on tropical-water-coloured vid screens, which shifted like light through water; it was mesmerizing to watch and Harry had no problem keeping his eyes on that instead of the oddities of the man behind the counter. As they left the stand behind a tank that Harry had thought was empty suddenly contained a large and many-tentacled creature. He squeaked and jumped sideways, bumping into Hagrid, who patted his shoulder and grinned. As they kept walking he swivelled his head to stare at the bizarre creature, watching as it 'disappeared' again, looking like an extension of the rock in its tank. Harry could just make out its eyes amongst the tentacles that it bent up to look like bits of weed.

"Now that's just showing off..." He muttered. It finally went out of view as they entered the next shop, the data-store, Flourish and Blot's. The shops symbol was a very old writing implement, made out of some kind of feather, which had dripped ink on the paper at the end of a long curlicue. It explained the strange name, at least. The merchandise seemed to consist mainly of data pads like the one his uncle had for receiving mail, though most of these were slimmer and of a sleeker design. A quick look at his list showed that he had choice of make and model, though there was a list of capabilities that he'd need too. Along with a list of text files that he'd need to study; He looked at that one with some despair, it was so _long_...

"Righ' then. I'm no good wi' words and data so you go an' choose summat. Ye've got yer list?" Harry nodded, "I'll jus be out t' front, wi't fish seller."

"Ok, I'll try and be quick." He said looking back at the list and swallowing.

"Take yer time, 'e's an old friend, an' ah'll see yeh in a mo." Hagrid sidled back out the door, leaving Harry to wade through different models of the flat little computers and chose the one he thought was best. They had to have a certain type of wireless connection and multiple vid-screen capability, so that narrowed it down a fair bit... and he definitely wasn't going to have a brightly coloured one, leaving black, white and silver, but there were still hundreds (it seemed) of other things to think about. Like, was holographic capability worth an extra thirty credits? Unable to make a decision based on just the computers, he went to have a look at the files he had to get.

'Planets, Gravity and Stars: Navigation for beginners.' Had holographic models of flight paths so that would be useful... oh, and the Hydroponics text books would use it too...

The 'Standard Book of Barriers: Grade One" looked pretty dry, Harry thought, flipping through the display copy installed on a basic data-pad. He revised that when he got to 'The Compendium of Avionic Codes and Protocols: Self Updating Edition.' _That_ was dry.

Harry emerged, half an hour after Hagrid had escaped, with a black and silver data-pad, fully installed with his required texts and a couple of other things he had picked up, like 'We Are Not Alone: Looking after your pet in Zero-g.'

Hagrid was sat behind the fish-sellers counter at a round table, sipping something dark blue out of a large glass mug. As Harry walked over, the octopus that had so thoroughly fooled him changed its skin colour again, generating a slightly nonsensical bit of text that Harry realised was its best attempt at copying the 'not for sale' sign and description behind its tank.

"Hagrid, I'm done... Hello, sir." He said politely, as the fish-seller turned from serving a customer.

"Good afternoon, little one. You must be Harry?" The man said in a lowered voice so they would not be over heard and cause a ruckus. Harry nodded; not truly understanding the man's furtive, if playful, tone but grateful for the discretion. "My name is Aaron, it is nice to meet you." Harry shook the proffered hand over the counter, finding it warm and slightly damp, though not sticky.

As he came 'round the counter, climbing a few steps, he realised that Aaron's skin _was_ faintly blue-gray and that the man _had no legs_. Or, more accurately, in place of his legs was a single, highly muscular tail. It wasn't scaly like a fish, rather the skin was smooth and gray and his tail bore a close resemblance to that of a whale or dolphins'. He was not, in fact _standing_ behind the counter, he was _floating;_

"It's nice to meet you, too..." Harry's mouth said on auto-pilot.

"Please sit down and take a break, I'll bring some shan!tic over and we can chat." His voice turned into a click at the end of the unfamiliar word, and Harry nodded dazedly, not taking his eyes of the strange apparition as he edged around to the back of the stand. The man had a _fin_ in the middle of his back...

"A'right there 'Arry? Try not teh let yer eyes fall out." Hagrid gave him a jovial pat on the back; Harry was propelled forwards several feet. He got himself together after a moment and pulled out a cushion from under the table to sit on. Hagrid looked very odd, sat cross legged at a rather low table but then Aaron _had no knees_ so Harry figured it made sense. The shop-keeper joined them fairly quickly, holding two glasses of the Shin'click'...sintic...? the blue stuff, Hagrid was drinking. Something about the size of a grape was swimming around in the bottom, much to Harry's concern, was he expected to eat the little creature?

Aaron put the two glasses down, one in front of Harry, and pulled himself out of the tank, onto the platform they were sitting on. A little flick of the tail shed most of the water and he slid easily onto a cushion, sticking his tail under the table.

"Thanks," To be polite and to try and avoid staring; Harry took a sip of the juice. It was cool and sweet and somehow tasted blue, though he didn't know how that was possible. He'd probably liken it most closely to red grape juice but it tasted faintly of raspberries too. He bent down to look at the little creature in his glass, watching it swim with three little tendrils that it twisted like screws.

"You're welcome; it's the juice of a freshwater plant that was made from a cross between blueberries, raspberries and some kind of vine." The half-dolphin took a sip of his own, before chasing the swimming thing to the surface with his straw and catching it. "The fruits swim in order to disperse the seeds but we breed a seedless version for eating." He munched the berry with a lopsided smile. Even Hagrid could tell that Harry was overwhelmed again.

"So... it's actually a plant? Not his relative?" Harry pointed to the octopus, which had crept to the front of its tank and, as they watched, flashed red as a harassed looking woman passed by, making her jump. "He does that on purpose doesn't he?"

"The two are unrelated, and yes, I think he does, the little bugger."

"'ere now, no swearin in fron' o' students!" Hagrid exclaimed, waving his mug pointedly at Aaron. "Don' ye go repeatin tha, ye hear?"

"Ok, Hagrid, Promise." Harry shifted around on his cushion. Now that the topic of 'strange drink contents' was exhausted he _really_ wanted to ask why Aaron was ... the way he was. Hagrid and Aaron shared another look,

"Harry, Hagrid says you've never met a Neptunian before, is that right?" He leant back and reached over to fish his wallet out of the shops counter, Harry nodded, assuming rightly that the term referred to having dolphin characteristics.

"Maybe I should explain a little then?"

"Yes please... that is, if you don't mind,"

He turned back to the table, opening his wallet and taking out a tiny data pad. "These are my great-great grandparents. Here," He handed Harry the pad which was showing a short clip of two fairly young people with three children of varying ages floating around them, obviously in zero-g. All three had tails. "There was a mix-up with a gene therapy and a whole group of women ended up having kids like me, when they eventually went on to have children."

Harry couldn't help but feel a little jealous of the children in the clip; after all, they were 'different' and yet they were smiling and happy and their cheeks were pink. On the other hand, they looked so happy that it made Harry feel a little bit better about the world.

"Once people worked out what was happening some who had had the treatment decided not to have children, but a good number just shrugged and went on with their lives." He tapped his great-great grandmothers image, "It's not much of a handicap in zero-g, and most ships have Hydroponics bays that would beg to have a Neptunian working for them." He grinned and took the data-pad back, flipping over to another image,

"That's my brother, Triton. He works with Hagrid and some of your teachers aboard the Poseidon; he'll be growing most of your food for the next seven years!"

Harry sat back, looking thoughtful, "The world's a lot bigger than my relatives ever knew, isn't it?" He said, smiling lopsidedly.

"It's much bigger than _most_ planet-bound think it is. Don't worry, you'll catch up."

They settled into easy conversation after that, Harry asked why Aaron was on the surface for instance, since it would be much easier to live in zero-g with a tail and it spurred on a long conversation about how naive planet-bound people were, even those that came to Vertic Alley, and how he could sell his fish at high prices just because a Neptunian had bred them. They sidled into talking about the octopus, Oscar, at one point, when he got the drop on someone in a particularly spectacular way. As it turned out, it was the pet Aaron had taken with him when _he_ had gone to the Academy; he'd only graduated some five years ago. That led on to talk about the number of Neptunian students that Harry could expect to meet, (not many) and to a guessing game as to what pet Hagrid had gotten Harry. He was insistent that Harry wouldn't find out until the very end of the day, when they would visit the Mysterious Menagerie.

He did eventually get up the courage to eat his swimming shintic fruit, it was very tasty.

Customers came and went, taking with them bags of very fresh, and usually live, fish and produce, and the conversation continued, with Aaron talking over his shoulder. He had some very good stories to tell. At ten to three, Severus arrived, having 'binged' Hagrid when he finished the Poseidon's acquisitions. He made enquiries as to any curiosities that Aaron might add to the Poseidon's aquaculture (there weren't any) and then they moved on to the Chemists', leaving Aaron and Oscar behind them.

The Chemists' was a fairly boring place, Snape was brisk, picking things up and handing them to Harry. Some of it was self explanatory, toothpaste, shampoo, his iron supplements and so on. More interesting was the fermentation unit, listed as a "gel-ferm unit-2" on his letter. The large octagonal tank only just fitted into Harry's arms as he carried it over to the counter; it was light, hard plastic with clear sides, heating elements and all sorts of other thingamies that Harry couldn't identify. It had its own control console on one side, but it wasn't active and told him little. The other gel components were interesting too; powders, liquids, blocks, sticks, the occasional gas and even something that changed from soft to hard when you poked it.

When they came to the section marked "rebreathers" Snape had called an attendant, shown him his medical licence and gotten Harry's adjustable high-oxygen version.

Part of the reason Harry found it boring at all, despite the number of novel objects, was that their next stop was Ollivander's, where he would be getting his EMN Interface. He lost interest in the shop soon enough and just stood idly by the counter as Snape picked up stocks for the Poseidon's Infirmary. He turned the 'breather over and over, wondering what it would be like to be 'interfaced'. Would he be able to feel the barriers like he had at the Museum? However briefly, he _had_ felt them ripple.

Since he had everything on his list _and_ the extra's Snape had suggested Harry turned to the cashier to pay, putting the 'breather carefully on the counter, next to all the other things he'd need. It consisted of a clear plastic mask which went over his nose and mouth, Snape had made sure it fitted before he had to move on to his own chores, connected to a black module, which would clip onto his belt. Snape had explained that the module would pull oxygen out of the air or air out of water, depending on circumstance, and feed it through the conduit to the mask.

After he'd paid he went and stood by the window with Hagrid to wait.

"Yeh nervous, 'Arry?" He asked, not looking at him.

"Yeah, a bit. Excited." Harry replied, also staring out the window, feeling fidgety and uneasy. "I'm no-one special, Aunt Petunia said... well... I probably shouldn't repeat it. What if I can't get it to work?"

Hagrid remembered their tear-filled conversation in the hut the night before; perhaps he hadn't eased Harry's fear as much as he'd thought. He skipped over the matter of relatives for now; the subject was just too raw.

"Norberta likes yeh, yeh know." He said, seeming to go off on a tangent. Harry frowned and glanced up at him, the question on his face,

"Aye, well. Ye get a computer tha' complicated an' they ge' personality, an' they're programmed tah look af'er their pilots." He turned to Harry, putting a beefy hand on his shoulder and leaning down to look him in the eye. "She saw yeh as a pilot, 'Arry. Yeh can make it work."

He nodded uncertainly; slightly comforted, but now he had to worry about disappointing Hagrid _and _the Norberta.


	6. Ollivander's

_AN: hello again, Thank you all for alerting, reviewing and favouriting! Enjoy,_

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><p>Chapter Six: Ollivander's<p>

Severus paused as he strode towards the exit, seeing that his companions were in deep conversation; by to look on Harry's face he thought it probably wasn't going particularly well.

"Hagrid, Mr Potter, I believe it is time we moved on." The brief increase in anxiety told Severus what Harry's problem was and he thought it was high time they dispelled any such insecurities. "Mr Ollivander is an odd man, but this should not take long. Come."

He shepherded them both out of the door then fell into step beside Harry, Hagrid on the boy's other side. Harry's intense curiosity for the myriad of novel sights had waned to nothing, even more so than it had in the Chemists. He just stared at his feet, arms wrapped around his chest.

The boy would survive, he decided, and would prove himself _to_ himself soon enough.

The door to the plain fronted building opened automatically as they approached and Severus wondered whether Ollivander had installed the whole building with sentience; it seemed like something he would do. Harry faltered on the boundary and it took a firm hand between the shoulder blades to get him in the door. Hagrid remained outside, while Severus followed Harry in.

"Ah'll jus be checkin' wit' the Menagerie, ye come by when ye'r done." Severus nodded but didn't think Harry had really heard; he was looking around the shop with an open mouthed expression that managed to convey both awe and nerves.

Severus rather thought his reaction appropriate, the store was fairly impressive; hundreds of brushed steel boxes lined the walls and large display cases of components glinted in the poor light of barriers. The barriers themselves were the most striking feature; arrayed in concentric circles, they rotated slowly, forming a constantly changing maze some six feet in diameter. He could see Harry tracking the movements visually, and Severus' smug little smile made a reappearance. _Insecurities, indeed._

After a moment, Harry looked around again, searching to corners for something. Severus had felt it a moment before and, more experienced in these things _and_ with the benefit of his Interface, could locate the strange feeling emanating from the proprietor. He had always wondered what it was but he supposed he would never find out; it felt like a ship powering up, a sense of energy and motion, but the old man was so secretive, his profession so arcane that getting any information out of him was nigh on impossible. He assumed that it was one of the things Ollivander used to asses people who came to him for their Interface, like the maze, as his owlish eyes were watching Harry intently.

"Good afternoon, Mr Potter." Harry whipped round, having turned to scrutinize the wall to their left, to face Ollivander, who had emerged from an isle to their right.

"Oh! Um, good afternoon..." He said with a falter.

"We are here for Mr Potter's Interface, if you please." He interjected into the slightly-too-long pause as Mr Ollivander examined Harry through his incredibly refractive glasses.

"Yes, yes of course. Please step this way, Mr Potter..." He said with a floaty, slightly absent tone of voice as he walked to the counter on the other side of the maze.

Harry, without hesitation and only a moment of further observation, walked _straight through the maze_. Oh, Severus was feeling very smug indeed, proud even. It took most students and, indeed, many adults some time to realise that the maze would not allow them to pass around it, let alone to solve the pattern of movement. Harry seemed to just be taking the shortest path between his location and Ollivanders', indicating that he had sussed out the maze to such an extent that he didn't even consider it an obstacle.

Yes, Severus was indubitably proud of his best friend's son.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

As he passed through the shifting barriers, Harry felt put at ease. As he had at the museum, he could feel them, location, speed, intensity, and it made him feel safe. Point of face, this whole building made him feel welcomed. Despite his initial apprehension, he realised that there was nothing to be afraid of here.

"Um... are you Mr Ollivander?" He asked as he left the barriers behind.

"I am. Are you Harry Potter?" The old man asked with a very serious expression on his face, which broke into a small smile a moment later,

"I am." Harry answered in kind, returning the little smile hesitantly.

"Well then, we're off to the right start." He said, pushing his large spectacles up the bridge of his nose. "You know what I make, Mr Potter?"

He nodded, "EMN Interfaces, sir. I need one to go to the Academy."

"Indeed I do, Indeed you do." He said, trailing of and nodding. "And you know what they are for?"

"Talking to the computers, sir?" Harry replied, glancing back at Snape and hoping not to embarrass himself.

"I wouldn't put it in those words, no..." He looked thoughtful, as if looking for the right ones. "Perhaps... it would be more correct to say 'feeling' to them." He nodded to himself again, seeming satisfied.

"You see, my boy, computers have their own language, one that no single person can understand. It took many hundreds of years to write and groups of many people to edit." At this point, Ollivander took Harry's shoulder, he wasn't actually much taller than the eleven-year-old, and guided him towards one of the racks of silver boxes.

"So you see; we cannot understand computers at that level. But, the same applies the other way around. People are far more complicated than any computer I have ever 'met' and so computers had to be told explicitly what to do, until visceral control was invented. All of a sudden, computers had many, many things to listen to, too many things for us mortals to programme into them. Our muscles, nerves, minds, blood and hearts all give off signals that VC machines can hear, so we programmed them to learn instead. They listen to what our bodies do and obey, once they begin to recognise the patterns."

Harry was grateful that Snape had explained this in a different way over lunch, between that and the way he could feel the barriers, he was beginning to understand.

"In the same way, we can feel the energy machines give off; you could feel those, could you not? You certainly looked like you knew where they were going to go." He gestured to the barriers,

"I... yes. I could tell... somehow." Harry gave a faintly confused smile, "It was like they make a wind that touched my skin, or when you put your hand close to a light bulb."

"Very good. That is more than many manage at your age. In fact... though I am reluctant to say it, the last person who walked through my maze like that... well, I'm sorry to say but he gave you that scar." Mr Ollivander looked weary and sad in that moment and Harry was a good bit shocked, perhaps even frightened.

"But, that's enough of that... You Father, well. He was over eager, charged right in and got knocked flat on his bottom the first time, before dodging through, quick as a whip. Decisive, if a little rash and a touch arrogant." He smiled and patted Harry on the back, turning towards the boxes and taking a couple down.

"You mother was quite the sight. Very sharp, bright eyed and with incredibly good judgment. She stood and watched and then just walked through, pausing at exactly the right moments, then stepping the next." He reached up a little higher than he could reach flat footed and pulled down a final box.

"And you... you just knew, didn't you? Where to put your feet, how fast to walk." Harry hadn't realised that the maze was a test; he'd thought it was just for ... show or something, and he was glad that he hadn't; he dreaded to think what being nervous would have done to his performance. He nodded,

"Yeah... that's good, right?" He said, a little apprehensive.

"Yes, my boy, yes it is. Here, just touch the spine." Mr Ollivander made him jump, suddenly turning around with an open box in hand. The Interface inside was folded up with the arms lying along what Mr Ollivander had called the 'spine' and twisting around it at the ends. It looked almost creepy...

Harry had barely made contact when it was whipped away again,

"No, not that one..." The next was presented, and the next, in the same fashion. The fourth was a little more dramatic; it made a horrible whistling and writhed in the box. Harry cringed and pulled his hand away, even as Ollivander removed the box. Harry was beginning to feel worried that firstly they wouldn't find one that he could use and secondly that he wouldn't have the courage to put the damn thing on his neck.

After the sixth, (small sparks and a sad sounding 'boop') Ollivander backed off and looked thoughtful.

"Perhaps... yes." He looked lost in thought, "One moment, I believe I have just the thing." He turned and walked slowly towards the back of the shop, a hand on his chin, muttering "Yes... now I wonder... not enough capacity perhaps..."

Harry looked over at Snape, who seemed to be idly browsing Harry's data pad. "Um... Professor? Is this normal? It seems a bit..."

The teacher looked up, his blank expression managing to look smug, _again_. Harry wondered what it was that kept making him look that way. "I assure you, you will leave with what you came here for. It is appropriate to take your time with this." He looked back at the data pad, "After all, you will probably keep the same one for the rest of your life."

Harry nodded thoughtfully, not noticing that he had not really had his question answered.

"Indeed, Mr Potter. Never will you trust a machine with your life as much as you will trust this. It will become a part of you, as much as your arms and legs."

Harry realised that, oddly, he was not surprised when Ollivander appeared directly behind him and he felt like he had been expecting him. The old shop keeper had not opened the box he held now and was looking down at it with a small frown. The box was subtly different than those of the ones they had already tried, made of a darker metal. Ollivander set it on the counter without opening it, gesturing Harry forwards.

"Try this one... it is a little different... we shall see." Harry was a little wary, after having been shocked by the previous try, and approached the box with care. His anxiety disappeared when he touched the box and he began to lift the lid. He could _feel_ something that felt very familiar, like the surges of the barriers he had caused... it was most compelling. It almost could have been a part of him; something he had lost long ago, and forgotten.

When he touched the smooth, slightly warm metal, the little machine gave a pleased hum and lights around its edges glowed a soft yellow.

"It's this one, Mr Ollivander..." He said; his voice very soft.

"Yes... It is, isn't it? Curious, how very curious..." He sounded slightly distant and rather amused,

"Do spit it out, man." Snape had come up behind them at some point and was looking a little irritated. Truth be told, he was a little concerned that Harry's Interface was somehow different or unusual and he hoped nothing untoward was indicated.

"I have only rarely made cores as intricate as this and of this sort I made only two, this and one other." He smiled as if to an inside joke, "And that other, why it belongs to the good Headmaster." Snape let out a quiet sigh, mentally grumbling about over dramatic old men while being simultaneously curious about Dumbledore's Interface. "You should be honoured, my boy!" He said and even as he turned to look at Harry his face dropped.

Their comments had gone completely unnoticed as Harry stared at his Interface, touching it lightly with three fingers on the spine. It lay in the box on a little stand, with its arms bent in the same position as they would be once he put it on. As he ran his fingers down the pitch black metal they opened slightly, as if ready to be worn. Slipping his fingers around the spine and holding the arms with his other hand, he lifted it from its stand. The underside was soft, pliable and the spine bent passively in his hand. It _already_ felt like a part of him and he did not think he wanted to be apart any longer.

Snape followed Ollivander's gaze to see Harry lifting the Interface to the back of his neck.

"No!-"

"Mr Pott-"

Neither of their warnings got through to the boy in time as he brought the machine into contact with the back of his neck. A deep tone of infinite complexity rang out and for a moment there was utter stillness. Then Harry gave a little gasp, throwing his head back and arching his spine. The Interface's arms slid easily into position, hugging his neck delicately. Severus lunged forwards, catching him around the waist before he managed to hit the ground.

Harry honestly couldn't have said whether or not he was standing at that point, he could feel so _much!_ Mr Ollivander's barriers were the least of it, Professor Snape stood out like a beacon, as did the old shop-owner. The data pad in Snape's pocket was 'talking' to somewhere and he was overhearing its chatter, Mr Ollivander's house was _watching _them and tasted of curiosity... he was truly overwhelmed. After a moment he heard his name being called and he realised that he had his eyes closed, once he had opened them he cringed, just a little bit.

The look on his Professor's face was deeply worried and a little angry, if he weren't so dazed; Harry might have scrambled away from him. Snape tightened his grip on his shoulders and Harry was surprised to get a face-full of the man's uniform.

"You idiot! What part of 'just touch the spine' was too complicated for you to understand?" Harry could hear the man's heartbeat through his chest, thumping away frantically.

"I'm sorry sir..." He felt himself being shifted slightly so his Professor had one hand free. His body was still tense and straining as he struggled against the influx of knowledge, the world was so _complicated_! He could even feel distantly, the Norberta 'listening' for him.

A wonderfully cool hand slipped under his hair and touched the Interface, causing it to loosen its hold and fall into Snape's hand. The world faded quickly back to normality and Harry realised how tense he had been. As he relaxed he began to pant to make up for the sudden use of oxygen that his tension had caused.

"Idiot, idiot boy." There was a click as Ollivander closed the box over the Interface. "Come on, stand up." He was hoisted to his feet and his head tipped forwards. Deft fingers touched the back of his neck and moved his hair out of the way. Harry felt all of three inches high, being lumped about like a toddler.

"You seem to have gotten away with that stunt, at least. There is no bruising or inflammation..." Harry didn't think that was actually addressed at him, Snape's voice trailed off into mutters, so he just stood there, leaning with his forehead on the breast of Snape's uniform and waiting for the dizziness to pass.

"I wanted... I thought-" Harry couldn't put that feeling into words. It had felt so natural, so like a part of him, that it was just _right_ that he wear it. Now he was confused, it had been like the first time he had had glasses, like all of a sudden he could perceive with clarity what had always been there, and yet it had been just too much.

"Quiet, Harry. Just get your breath back." He nodded against the black fabric, glad to be free from the need to explain. Snape's cool fingers slipped under the corner of his jaw and pressed lightly against his neck, "You're fine, Harry. But... we should probably get you home."

Harry jerked back from the professor at that, looking up at him with wild eyes, shaking his head numbly. Hagrid had promised not to send him back but _Snape_ had said nothing of the sort.

"No, please... Hagrid, HAGRID!" Harry was panicking, he had thought things, done things in this one day of freedom that the Dursleys would punish him for, his texts would be taken from him, and he _could not go back_.

"Harry, calm down!" Snape was following him, reaching out to restrain him, "Mr POTTER." His shout jerked Harry to a stop, breathing in short, ineffective puffs and quivering with tension.

"No... Please! Don't ... make me-!" He knew he was garbled, he didn't have any air, how could anyone expect him to talk when there was no air? The edges of his vision were beginning to gray out and he could feel his muscles weakening... if only he could make it to the door, maybe Hagrid would tell the Professor about their promise, about how the Dursleys had thrown him out.

He didn't make it to the door; as panicked as he was, the maze slowed him down enough that Snape caught him and picked him up bodily. He resisted, flailing and kicking weakly but panic gave him enough strength that when his elbow connected with a collar bone, the professor swore, immediately following it with a 'don't you dare repeat that'. Maybe that was a pre-programmed response? Hagrid had said the exact same thing...

Harry realised that he must have passed out because when he woke up, much as he had before, his back was against Snape's broad chest, his head tipped back on his shoulder and there was an arm supporting his chest, hand splayed over his heart. The only addition was the cool plastic of the mask over his face as it provided gloriously cool, fresh air. He could feel his head clearing much faster than it had before, but that was not necessarily a good thing; his hand convulsively gripped the arm around his chest as his panic reasserted itself.

"Harry? Harry can you hear me? Stop that, you're not going back to the Dursleys, kindly try to breath normally..." Harry managed to relax his death grip on Snape's arm at that, and though his breathing was still proving problematic, the mask was helping.

"That's it, Harry, deep breaths." Harry felt him turn his wrist to look at his watch and the fingers pressed against his neck again. He had no reason to believe that Snape was telling the truth, but also no reason to disbelieve him... a tempting prospect. Snape _had_ looked after him, twice now, without ridiculing him or being disgusted by him.

"Harry, open your eyes please... thank you," It was surprisingly difficult, he was incredibly tired and his limbs felt heavy and weak, as did his eyelids. Snape's little pen light made a reappearance and flashed in Harry's eyes, "That's fine; you just rest there for a while, ok?" Harry nodded weakly and let his eyes close again. Though he did not fall asleep, he couldn't pay attention to anything either, he just drifted. It was not unpleasant.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Severus was very relieved when Harry managed to open his eyes and actually looked at him for a moment, though it could have just been where his eyes were pointing at the time. He had already taken Harry's glasses, with some disgust at their disrepair, to stop them from getting broken, so he was able to test Harry's pupilary reflexes briefly. Between that, his heart and respiration rates and the time course of the attack, Severus felt safe in his earlier diagnosis of anaemia-related syncope, triggered by strong stress, panic; first the irrational fear of doctors and now a fear of being returned to his relatives. With luck, Harry would not be exposed to such high stress again anytime soon, at least not until he was firmly settled as a permanent resident of the Poseidon.

Severus had little doubt that the Headmaster would want to keep him close now that he had a legal right to do so. As _In Loco Parentis_, the Academy would be able to look after him and Snape believed that the duty would fall on his and Hagrid's willing shoulders.

A movement to his left caught his attention briefly; Mr Ollivander was placing the Interface, safely in its box, in a bag and ringing up the sale. They were not inexpensive items, but Harry's parents had, apparently, made provisions for this day, in their will; leaving Mr Ollivander a substantial sum that would cover this and a good number of repairs, should Harry be rough on his Interface. It was not something a child should ever have to worry about.

The boy's breathing was nearly back to normal so Severus began to dial down the oxygen saturation towards atmospheric, though he left the air pressure up slightly higher than ambient to give Harry a helping hand for a little longer. He could tell that he was nearly asleep, though his eyes blinked open languidly as Severus rearranged him so he could be picked up. Severus had to admit that he was not massively surprised at this; it had been an incredibly long two days for someone so small.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

He left Ollivander's shop with Harry neatly tucked against his chest, their shopping bags hanging from one wrist,

"Hagrid, we had a...an Incident, would you take him, please?" The Keeper of Codes was striding towards them, looking very concerned indeed. He bundled Harry up, without hesitation and Severus transferred the 'breather's module from his own belt to Harry's stomach, folding the hose neatly against his chest.

"He is un-injured, however it is time we took him ho- to Thrace." Severus could have cursed; he had nearly made the same mistake twice in the space of half an hour. "We will pick up the pet, but I doubt he'll fully wake for some time." Severus was finding it quite difficult to back off from the limp body in Hagrid's arms. The boy was so very white and still... he reminded Severus more of people coming in, injured, from the black than a boy on a shopping trip. He shook himself and managed to back away, watching the deep rise and fall of Harry's chest to reassure himself.

"What 'appened? E' was so lively..." Hagrid looked like he might cry and Severus really did not want Harry to drown;

"He collapsed. Mainly because he put on his Interface unprepared. That combined with anaemia... well, it was time to return and rest. I... may have worded it incorrectly and he assumed that I was referring to the Dursleys, panic and hyperventilation followed, hence..." He gestured as if to indicate the entire situation.

"I am sorry that this has ruined your surprise... It is his birthday, after all..." Seeing Severus look saddened was simply disconcerting so they, by mutual unspoken agreement, turned and headed for the Menagerie.


	7. Hedwig

_AN: Thanks to Forgotten Lake, ObsessiveCompulsiveforhp, Lady Bahiya, GinnyLover14, Electric Risk, WithaVengence, Shadow Lighthawk, kaatisu1, moonrabbit04 and cara-tanaka for some truly thought provoking and encouraging reviews! _

_Enjoy,_

_Rose._

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><p><em>Chapter Seven: Hedwig<em>

Harry half woke when Hagrid picked him up but didn't feel like he could move; he recognised Hagrid's voice against his cheek and felt safe. He drifted off again.

The next time he woke, the cool mask was leaving his face and he drew a deep breath of warmer and more scented air. It smelled like sawdust and animal hair, and he could hear lots of chattering, cooing and whistling. He managed to open his eyes and smile, knowing that this must be the Menagerie.

The light filling the shop was warm and golden, like evening sunshine, and Harry could just make out the edges of a large skylight above him. He shifted his head a little to look over towards the chattering noises, but without his glasses, he couldn't make out any of the animals.

"'ello, 'Arry. 'Appy birt'day, an' all tha'. Meet yer presen'" Hagrid's voice was very deep when your ear was so near his chest. Harry shifted his head with effort to look up at him and smiled. A small and very warm weight was deposited on his chest, covered in a soft blanket of creamy towel; whatever it was made a soft cooing sound and stood up on four warm little feet. It walked up his jumper and he felt two very tiny hands touch his face, one on his chin, the other on his cheek. His field of vision was filled by two large golden eyes, blinking at him curiously.

"Hello," He whispered, his throat still feeling a little sore. The eyes were set in a little pink face surrounded by white fur, with two tufted ears sticking out from the side of its head. It was really very cute, Harry thought, as he gave up on staying awake. As his eyes shut of their own accord, he felt the little warm bundle curl up under his chin and something long and soft wrap around his neck.

He slept.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry knew time had passed, he could remember being wrapped up in Snape's overcoat and strapped in to a seat on an unfamiliar ship. He'd seen the man's broad shoulders as he sat in the pilot's chair beside him and wrapped his hands around a pair of joystics. The ship had shuddered and lurched and then Harry had been pressed comfortably back in his seat. He didn't remember anything else, until waking up fully by virtue of having a piece of strawberry dropped in his ear.

Well, in truth, he woke up because his ear felt cold and rather wet. Still in the vestiges of a very pleasant (thank-you-very-much) sleep, he rolled onto his back and batted vaguely at the air above his face. Whatever _it_ was, stuck to his hand with a feeling like very, very fine Velcro; still holding his hand in the air he blinked his eyes open. He thought he couldn't have been asleep for very long, his eyes felt fresh rather than that nasty crusty sensation you'd get after sleeping too long.

The creature clinging to his hand with three out of four paws was familiar, white fur, big golden eyes, tufty ears. Its fourth paw was holding a strawberry, half a strawberry, which it had obviously been eating until very recently. They stared at each other for a moment, unblinking.

Eventually the little monkey-type-thing put the strawberry to its mouth and chewed off a big piece, still staring avidly at Harry. Juice dribbled over its fingers and onto Harry's arm.

"Merlin... It's like watching a train wreck..." the voice from his right shattered the stalemate and Harry looked over to see a dark shape that could only be Snape offering him a pair of glasses, a _new_ pair.

He put them on and smiled widely, the refraction on the new frames adjusted immediately and the world was incredibly, impossibly clear. The room he was lying in was fairly large, the walls were a warm cream colour and there was a dresser and desk against the far wall. It was lit weirdly; Harry couldn't tell where the light was coming from. Snape was sitting in an office chair that he had probably taken from the desk, feet flat on the floor, elbows on his knees and a chin in one hand.

"The food was originally for you; however... you may need to claim it before she decides to feed your other ear."

Harry spotted a tray on the bedside table that held the promised meal, he'd never been brought breakfast before... or dinner or whenever this was. In fact... he couldn't remember someone ever bringing him food. Buying it yes, but... somehow this was a little different.

"'m sorry, sir..." He said; his smile dissipating as he remembered foolishly putting on the Interface, panicking, running from Snape, all mortifying events. It was hardly the way to repay the man for getting him over his fear of doctors and looking out for him. There was an amused grunt.

"Indeed. It is entirely your fault that your relatives had the approximate altruism of seagulls." Harry didn't really know what to say to that, he wanted to grin at the dripping sarcasm but he still felt the need to explain.

"I... that's not what I..." He mumbled, pushing himself up against the pillows.

"I know, Harry, but you made a mistake that, in retrospect, even I cannot fault you for." Snape sat back in the chair, lacing his fingers together over his waist. Harry was most relieved that finally an adult was being reasonable. A rough little tongue licked his hand and he looked back at his new pet, smiling as she cleaned up the last of the strawberry juice. He shook his head to the side, dislodging the piece to fruit in his ear and the little creature pounced on it and ate it with no qualms. Harry couldn't help but find that a little gross...

"What's its name?" Harry asked stroking the fur on its back gently. It was softer and fluffier than anything he had ever felt and a brilliant white.

"She is a lemuro; she does not yet have a name." Snape had apparently had enough of Harry's food-apathy and stood, picking up the tray and putting it over Harry's legs.

"Eat. I'll not have you fainting anymore; it is not conducive to good health."

The tray contained a mostly decimated bowl of fruit, some rice, a bowl of soup that smelled like cooked-just-right fish and a plate of something green, slimy and that smelt vaguely of lemons. He picked up the spork and started on the rice, which, as it turned out, had peas in and tasted very good.

He watched the 'lemuro' watch him. She followed the path of the spork with both eyes and head, bobbing and swivelling her neck.

"She's rather loyal already, lemuro's imprint on the first human face they see and Hagrid was very careful. It's the bird genes." Snape commented with amusement, picking up a mug from the dresser to his left. "Wouldn't leave you alone."

As interesting as she was, Harry had some other pressing questions that he wanted to ask. He fidgeted with his spork for a second before sticking it upright in his rice.

"Where am I?" Was the most obviously pressing, the room looked innocuous enough and he _did_ trust the Professor, but still...

"This is Thrace, the Poseidon's planet-side safe house on Terra." He made a broad gesture, "It's fairly well shielded and we're not far from London and Vertic Alley. It is also underwater." Snape gave him a moment to process that one, as he spun around to look out the window on the other side of the room.

"Almost all the Poseidon's fighters, transports and maintenance vehicles are capable of sea travel, in addition to atmospheric and space flight." He grinned sardonically, "It is far easier to crash into water than onto land."

Harry stared out the window, (or was it technically a porthole?) and marvelled at the dim light that spilled down through the clear waters. From this angle he couldn't see the surface or the sea bed, just endless blue-green water.

"Food, Mr Potter." Harry was beginning to recognise that tone and turned back to his food, this time taking a bite of the green stuff. It tasted like the sea smelled, with a strange creamy lemon and sesame sauce, and was warm. He chewed slowly to get used to the odd texture and decided that he rather liked it. "We are not very deep, about 70 meters. You could swim to the surface if you don't mind the cold and not being able to get back down."

Harry scooped up some rice and speared some green stuff all at once, deciding it was a good combination. "Why though? Isn't it hard to build underwater?" Harry asked; mouth half full.

"Very attractive, Mr Potter..." He looked sternly and Harry pointedly chewed with his mouth shut, shrinking back a little. "Firstly, it is no more difficult to build a place like this than it is to build an Inter Planetary Transport, which we do all the time. Secondly, Thrace used to be _the_ Thrace, a ship that made the run from Terra to Matius on a regular basis. We just sunk her onto a patch of rather inexpensive sea-bed." He fell silent, lazily pointing to Harry's food, which was beginning to get cool.

Harry decided to try the soup next and found that it was crab and also very nice.

"Thirdly, we grow Carexin here." Harry's mouth formed into an 'O' and suddenly it made sense. Carexin was famous; it was salt-water kelp that had a very high carbon-dioxide affinity and turned seawater, CO2 and mineral solutes into plastics with which to make its cell walls. They had done projects on it in primary school.

"You would be surprised at how much plastic, gel, nylon and rubber we lose to the black." Harry hadn't had any preconceptions to be surprised from, but he nodded anyway, drinking more soup.

"And you and Hagrid stay here during the holidays?" Snape could see where this question was going and hesitated for a bit, he had spoken to the Headmaster about this... but still, the Thrace was isolated and perhaps not the best place for a child to stay...

"Yes it is. You will be staying here with us until the Transport leaves on the 31st of August."

Harry suppressed both a broad grin and tears, lowering his head and piling up another sporkful of food. "Sounds good..." Snape detected Harry's delicacy in that moment and shifted the subject away from painful topics for now.

"Well then, I cannot keep calling her It, you must name your pet." He stood, going over to the desk and fishing out Harry's new data tablet. "I would suggest using your history text..." He looked down at the little computer, navigating with flicks of his finger.

"Thanks..." He mumbled, taking the tablet and laying it next to his leg. He navigated the menus with his left hand and pointedly kept eating with his right. He soon settled to reading a particular story, a soft smile spreading slowly over his face. Snape let himself relax and settled in his chair at the expression.

Eventually, Harry made a decision and turned the tablet off; he reached out with a slice of banana between thumb and forefinger, "Hello, Hedwig... There's a good girl..." She took the banana delicately in one hand, his thumb in the other and licked his fingers clean. She had a very long tongue, with a raspy feeling to it.

"You said she has bird genes... I can figure the tail, but what about her hands and this?" Hedwig's tail was longer than her body with an elaborate fan of feathers down its length. Harry could tell from how it had wrapped around his wrist earlier that it had a bony, prehensile spine, unlike any bird. Her hands were incredibly sticky, so much so that they felt like some kind of gum, but they didn't leave any residue behind, except for that which could be accounted for by strawberry juice. "this" was the strange skin between her arms and body. Harry looked closer once she had finished the banana, (which didn't take long, to be fair) and found the strange flappy skin on her legs too.

"As a Lemuro, she has lemur, gecko and either swan or owl DNA," Snape answered, approaching the bed and sitting on the edge. Putting the data pad down on the duvet, he gently stroked her cheek to get her to relax and put one of his fingers in her palm. She gripped it and began investigating his hand; it was about the same size as her body, which makes things pretty interesting. "Lemur is obviously dominant, nervous system, some digestion, and probably all her senses are from that, and most of her body shape. The gecko is more subtle but, if anything more important. Observe." He pulled his finger away from her but the pads of her fingers stuck to his skin. "She is not proficient enough to climb on vertical surfaces in gravity, but in zero-g it will be more than sufficient. I believe her tongue is also influenced by those genes, she was catching thrown fruit with it earlier."

"Ah, wait, _you_ were the one giving her fruit?" Harry exclaimed, slightly annoyed and rubbing and the stickiness in his ear.

"Well, actually I was throwing fruit at _you_, to wake you." Snape kept his impassive look and sipped from his mug but Harry just knew he was being laughed at.

"WHAT? Are you a teacher or what? That's so mean!" Harry exclaimed for the sake of appearances, though he found the thought of Snape throwing fruit at anyone rather amusing.

"Would you have rather I used a glass of water? It was successful, in any case. I'll not have you criticising my methods!" His faux outrage lasted a full three seconds before dissolving his small, one-sided grin.

"As for the wing membranes, I would imagine they're from the original lemur. She was probably a flying species."

Harry nodded and stroked her head softly, smiling. "Is Hagrid around? I want to say thanks..." He shifted and tried to lift the half empty tray of his lap as if he was about to get up, he felt it only proper that he go find his friend in person.

"No Harry, do not get up." He looked up at Snape and found him to look dark, forbidding.

"But...!" Harry frowned, a stubborn expression forming on his lips. Snape's look of righteous anger was frightening, but at the same time, if he didn't speak to Hagrid then he'd be angry and wouldn't be his friend anymore. He felt the tray being removed and looked down quickly, then back up at the professor,

"You lost consciousness, twice today, whilst in my care!" Snape shifted on the edge of the mattress, reaching out and grasping Harry's shoulders firmly. "That is not _normal_! You are ill, Harry, and as your Chief Medical Officer I am ordering you to stay in that bed!" Harry felt his eyes start to burn and his throat tighten up, "Hagrid is not even here right now and when he returns, you will no doubt be the first to know."

"He's gone?" Harry knew he must have looked frightened because Snape gave his shoulders a quick squeeze before pushing him back into the pillow.

"Yes, there are students who have no family history of VC and need reassurance. That is his job." He turned back to the dinner tray, now back on the bedside table, and upturned the bowl of green stuff over Harry's rice. He stuck the spork into the bowl and held it out to Harry.

_The Dursley's didn't need reassurance; they needed a kick in the head._ He thought with an unusual viciousness. He was looking down at his hands, curled tightly in the blankets, and didn't notice the bowl straight away. "It's the Dursley's fault, isn't it?" he spat, frowning.

Snape said nothing for a moment then sighed. "Yes. However, it is far from too late to correct. Eat your algae."

He looked up and took the bowl, looking again at the green stringy stuff. Its texture was most like egg noodles and it tasted completely inoffensive, pretty good actually, but... algae? Really? He gave up and took up the spork again,

"In all honesty, I doubt you will faint again until we are aboard the Poseidon. Once there you will need your mask when we undergo manoeuvres, but I will do my utmost to prevent a full episode." Snape stood up from the mattress and retreated to his chair, retrieving his mug which Harry now saw contained the same blue juice he had been introduced to earlier.

It was hard to believe that this was still the same day as he had left the Dursley's tender care; he had done so much, so much had happened. So much had _changed_.

Hedwig, chattering, climbed up his arm and patted his face with her sticky little hands and he realised that he was crying; she was licking away the salty liquid between concerned glances.

"I... Thank you..." How many tears did he have in him, anyway? He felt slightly outraged and embarrassed, after all, he hadn't cried in years back at the Dursley's, but since he'd met Hagrid...

"Just eat, Harry, you're safe here and there'll be time for... all that, later." Snape sounded slightly tired and when Harry looked up, he thought he saw a little bit of sadness on _his _face, too.

So Harry finished as much of the food as he could handle, which turned out to be more than he had at lunch, and the Professor began to tell him about the Poseidon. Harry thought it sounded _awesome_, and he asked as many questions as Snape could answer, which was a fair number. He didn't realise he'd finished his rice and seaweed until Snape swapped it out for the soup and he polished that off too.

He started feeling sleepy just as Snape was outlining the First Cadet Navigation course and he suspected a conspiracy, between his full stomach and Snape's deliberate choice of a dull topic, it was hard to keep his eyes open. He curled up on his side with Hedwig tucked near his chest, grooming herself with great concentration to get rid of the traces of crab soup on her hands and muzzle. Once he had finished with the bowl, she had pounced on it and licked it clean vigorously, getting the residue on her fur.

As he started drifting off, he thought about asking for some pyjamas but he realised that he was already wearing something large and soft that was definitely not what he had been wearing in Vertic Alley. He didn't mention it, since he was embarrassed about having been changed while asleep, but it was just another thing that made this different, and better.

Snape set up his data pad to project a low-intensity hologram of the time, once he had finished making Harry drowsy, and left it on the bedside table. Light had stopped filtering down through the seawater not long ago and once Snape stepped out of the room, turning the strange lighting down, the hologram provided just enough light for Harry to watch Hedwig fall asleep, her head nodding until she tumbled over and woke herself up again. He gathered her to his chest and made a little nest out of his arms and pillow and let himself drift off with her.


	8. Up is Down

_AN: Thanks to all my lovely reviewers, you're fairly inspirational and some of you have been excellent sounding boards! (Thats you, Shadow Lighthawk, I really appreciate it!) To those of you who have PM's turned off, thank you for reviewing! I won't reply to those here, because it takes up such a lot of space but know that I mean it when I thank you. _

_Now, On!_

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><p><em>Chapter Eight: Up is down.<em>

When he woke the next morning, the light was already shining down through the seawater in shifting shafts as the oceanic swell bent it into a shifting pattern of bright and dim. Harry lay on his side, as he had woken, watching it move. Eventually he sat up, with his feet dangling off the edge of the bed; sitting like that, they didn't touch the carpet. He rubbed his eyes blearily, not feeling altogether with it, and when Hedwig greeted him, by running up his arm and chattering, he actually jumped.

Once over his own reaction he stroked her ruffled tail feathers down and spoke in a reassuring tone of voice;

"Good morning, Hedwig." He said; half thinking that he needed to teach the lemuro her name and half thinking that it was time for breakfast. First, he needed some trousers though. Snape had dressed him in a shirt that was many times too big for him, it was soft and comfortable but he didn't think he should walk around in just an oversized shirt and his shorts. He dropped down off the bed and looked around for clothes, only to be distracted by the large window. When he stood nearer the glass, he could see the sea floor, covered in a very thick carpet of brilliant green kelp. The fronds were in constant motion, as if there was wind or, Harry supposed, its underwater equivalent; current. Shoals of fish were all over the place; Harry thought that the forest looked like a perfect place to live, if you were a fish, and the shoals were in constant motion.

It looked like the room he had slept in was some ways up from the bottom of the sunken ship; he had the underwater equivalent of a mountain view. It was mesmerizing to watch the great shafts of sunlight sweep across the seafloor, sparkling off the scales of fish and making the kelp almost glow.

He leaned his forehead against the glass and watched a shoal of fish as they picked at the brownish slime that was growing on Thrace's hull. Listening really carefully, he could hear the little "Tcluk" sound they made being transmitted through the thick glass. It made him wonder how they kept the window clear of the slime, since there was so much for the little fish to eat. There was so much life... this was even better than the countryside that his relatives had driven through the day before yesterday, he'd had no idea that there was so much in the oceans...

He didn't know how long he stood watching but eventually he was brought back to reality by the sound of the door sliding open. He blushed furiously, knowing he would look ridiculous in just his underwear and a huge shirt that had probably been lent to him by his Professor. Hedwig, who had left him to look out of the window alone, in favour of exploring the room again, chattered excitedly and gambolled towards the door. Harry turned to see who it was and wasn't surprised to see Snape, though the large trunk he had with him was novel.

"I brought your clothes; Hagrid dropped them off on his way past." He said, stepping warily inside and trying not to catch any of Hedwig's tail feathers under his boots. "There is a bathroom at the end of the hall, should you need it." Eventually the lemuro took a leap of faith and jumped up and caught hold of Snape's calf, riding with her tail wrapped around his ankle. The man just sighed and strode to the bottom of the big bed to put the trunk down.

Harry was again, mortified. Had Snape noticed that he hadn't bathed in almost a week? Did he smell that bad? Regardless, yes, Harry would very much like to shower.

"Um... yes, sir... I would like to wash; I'll be quick, honest!" He managed to get out, biting his lip in embarrassment.

"Very well, I'll return to pick you up in twenty minutes, take your time." The professor checked his watch to note the time, "Finding the Mess is somewhat of a navigational challenge, do not go wandering alone, understood?" With that, he gave Harry a brief nod and swept out of the room. He returned half a moment later, looking amused, and deposited Hedwig in Harry's hands.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry spent a long time under the hot water, in the end, shampooing his hair twice and using a fair amount of the body wash he'd gotten at the Chemists. It felt pretty good to have his own stuff, for once, and not have to worry about using too much, except that he would need to get more eventually.

The bathroom was cool too, it didn't have a window to the sea, but it was lit in the same weird was as the bedroom was. Harry eventually worked out that the floor was generating the light, which then bounced off the white ceilings. It made a wonderfully even light that didn't make Harry's eyes sore, which the ceiling light had back at No. Four had. While the bedroom had been bathed in a kind of yellowy warm colour, the bathroom was plain white light that reflected off the blue panels that fronted the cupboards. It felt very... spacey, to Harry, and the utter separation between this place, with its glowing floors, still air and life just outside the window and the sterility, cold and hunger of the Dursleys was glorious. It was hard to imagine his Uncle or Aunt ever setting foot in a place like this.

Once he was clean to his own rather high standards he was starting to look a little wrinkly. A look at his new watch, which was lying by the sink, told him that he had five minutes left before Snape got back. Hedwig had been playing with his borrowed shirt while he showered, he discovered, and had turned it from a neat pile into a mess. But, she looked so amusing, with just her head and one hand poking out of one of the sleeves, that it was worth the second round of folding. As he dried off on a very large towel, she went to investigate the damp shower tray, her tail held upright out of the water.

After carelessly scrubbing his hair dry, he started pulling on the new clothes Madam Malkin had sold him. It was _so very good_ to have his own stuff. He'd picked up the burgundy jumper again, along with a plain black t-shirt and some trousers. He felt he looked pretty respectable, looking down at himself, like he could have a bit of pride in his clothes.

He picked up the pile of borrowed shirt and called out to Hedwig, she may or may not have recognised her name, but she came anyway, looking curious. Snape arrived a few minutes early, just as he was padding, barefooted, back to the room he had slept in.

The man stopped and blinked for a moment before continuing as if nothing had happened, remarking wryly;

"Ah, yes... the infamous Potter hair. I see it now." He walked past the confused Harry and picked up his data pad, flipping it over swiftly and presenting the shiny black back to Harry, who realised that it made an impromptu mirror. He saw Snape's point, as always when he had washed it, the vast majority of his hair was sticking up vertically. He scowled at the teacher and ran his fingers through the damp tangle to get it to flop down slightly more naturally.

"It's not like I can help it..." He grumbled. Hedwig seemed to take his actions as permission to begin grooming his mane for him. Her sticky little hands acted like very fine combs and did get rid of the tangles, though she didn't seem to have the concept of 'getting it to lie down' quite right. Harry, having not been exposed to very much nature journalism, was rather confused by her behaviour.

Snape explained about mutual grooming, as Harry put his new shoes on. They felt pretty strange to him, since they touched the tips of his toes and held his foot still, instead of letting them slip around. He guessed that was why the seamstress had measured his feet, in any case.

"So she's saying 'let me be your friend'?" He asked as they left the room, turning down the corridor in the opposite direction from the bathroom.

"In a manner of speaking, it would perhaps be closer to 'please be my friend'." Snape said, still looking amused at the mess the little lemuro was making of his hair. "Come, breakfast."

Snape strode away swiftly, his jacket flaring behind him, and Harry had to jog to catch up.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The Mess, the ship's dining hall, was in the habitat ring. Ship's like the Thrace and the Poseidon, Snape told him, had large rotating ring shaped decks suspended from the 'spine', or central axis of the ship. As the ring spun, it created an 'outward acceleration', and the rings felt like they had gravity. Harry couldn't say he understood the principle, but Snape assured him that they could come back to the topic. In any case, Snape explained that only the bottom third of each ring was usable, before the floors became too sloped compared to Terra's gravity. Harry could... sort of picture it. A ship's crew would spend most of their time in the habitat ring, so that they could avoid the long-term effects of zero-g, and only venture out into the rest of the ship for their working shifts; lessons, in Harry's case. Apparently, most of a ship was unmanned most of the time, maybe even half the volume. It took that much space to store the power ships needed; not to mention the fighter decks, storage compartments, and water and air filtration.

Since the Thrace had been decommissioned, her port fighter deck had been converted into the living quarters Harry had stayed in, so that there was space for the Poseidon's non-student crew, Snape said, to have a base from which to have shore-leave.

Harry felt uneasy about that, could some unknown crewmember just be wondering around...?

"How many people are staying here?"

They were in the lift at this point, travelling down from the spine in the middle of the ring to the bottom, where the Mess had been rotated to before the Thrace was grounded. Snape could not help but notice the unease behind the question,

"The Poseidon is recharging her power reserves in close orbit around Solaris over the summer, the majority of the crew are required to stay on board." He spoke as the lift reached their stop and he swept out. "Hagrid and I are the only planet-side crew members during the re-charge."

Breakfast was much along the same lines; food had been waiting for them under a heat lamp, they spoke a little, Harry asked his questions and Snape answered with a brisk tone while they ate. Hedwig once again attacked Harry's food, though with more decorum this time. He noticed that she seemed to like soft fruits, like banana, and fishy things best; he had watched open mouthed as she took the piece of kipper he offered in one hand, a slice of banana in the other and alternated bites. She seemed to enjoy it, at least.

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Severus watched the Lemuro with gentle amusement, though he couldn't help remembering his own first companion, a Pebble Toad, which had lived a happy seven years before dying of old age. He hadn't ever gotten 'round to replacing him, despite some pressure from both Albus and Minerva. No, he was comfortable in his solitude and the company of his shipmates, when necessary, but... The joy and amusement on Harry's face was something to be envious of.

Perhaps the truth of his relatives' callous rejection had not truly reached him yet, or perhaps he was so jaded already that it was a drop in the ocean. In either case, Severus felt justified in his trepidation, should Harry be as deeply scarred as all that...

When Harry spoke up, it surprised him out of his thoughts and he realised that his usually impassive expression had relaxed into one of sorrow. Though insightful for an eleven-year-old, Harry wasn't quite there yet and misconstrued the target of his emotions;

"Do you have a pet, sir, back on Poseidon?" He asked, with his hand over Hedwig's back as she washed her hands clean of banana and fish. Severus noted that he'd done fairly well at eating a normal portion of food, though his shrunken stomach would probably protest later.

"No, I do not. My first companion died just after I graduated, four years before you were born." Harry's face fell in sympathy. "I have yet to replace him."

"I'm sorry sir..." The boy had stopped eating; it was probably for the best, Severus would make sure he was fed again, mid-morning. He sat back himself, popping the last bit of his smoked fish and egg into his mouth, waving off Harry's concern.

"He was old," He said, in an attempt to alleviate the boy's unwelcome concern, honestly, he had been kicked out by his only living family and he was worried about the death of a toad, fifteen years in the past?

"Still though..." Conversation trailed off after that, as Severus stood up and gathered their plates. Harry quite automatically joined him and did much of the washing up. While a good work ethic was important, Severus felt a little bitter that Harry had it ingrained in him long before the tender age of eleven.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry grinned as he looked around the kitchen, or Mess, as Snape had called it. It was WAY better than the Dursley's, the sink had a moveable head like a shower and he happily squirted the bits of toast and egg yolk of his plate with it, doing his best not to get water everywhere, as entertaining as that might be. Hedwig seemed to like it too; she stuck to the back of his hand and kept putting her hand into the jet, before jerking it back and licking the water off. If she wanted to drink from the fun tap, so be it, though Harry thought that he had better sort her out a bowl or something so she could drink when she liked.

Snape's presence at his side was strange, he'd never done the washing up with someone else before; the professor took the clean, de-bubbled plates and things from him and passed them through a jet of air that blew all the water off the utensils and onto the draining board. It beat tea-towels, any day. As they put everything away, Harry noticed that Snape didn't just put things on shelves; each item went into a rack that held it securely.

"When a ship accelerates, that is, begins to go faster or change direction, anything that isn't secured, tied down or racked, gets thrown across the room." Snape said, in response to his question.

"Like having something in a box and throwing it up in the air?" Harry said as he worked out how his milk glass would fit into its rack.

"Quite. People included. It is very dangerous to leave anything unsecured, on an active ship." Snape finished drying his hands and picked Hedwig up out of the sink, playing with the tap had made her somewhat soggy, though her tail seemed to stay dry, no matter how it got splashed. "Here." He handed the damp creature over and Harry watched with great fascination as she stretched out her wing membranes and shook her arms. Her fur shed little droplets all over Harry and he spluttered and giggled. It was so nice to have a little someone... He thought about Snape's poor, old little toad and wished he could replace him... since Snape had looked sad. Maybe he could talk to Hagrid. He had found him Hedwig after all, and she was _perfect_.

"But I thought that this ship," He paused and looked as Snape with a questioning look,

"Thrace." The professor supplied,

"I thought Thrace was grounded or sea-bedded, and that was why there are places to live outside of the ring thingy." He said, trying to work out how this whole business worked.

"Very astute, Mr Potter." Harry didn't quite know what that meant, but Snape had the same expression as he had when Harry had worked out the Interfaces, at the Leaky Airlock. "It is purely habit, habit that could save someone's life." That made him pay attention,

"Imagine a knife or plate, dropped down the lift shaft. By the bottom, it will be moving at great speed, enough to injure or kill someone. Now imagine that the ship is breaking, slowing down. Have you ever been in a car as it made a sudden stop?"

Harry nodded silently, watching the professor intently, "You get thrown forwards, sir."

"Indeed. On this ship, that is forwards," He said, pointing to the wall to the right of the lift. "If she was breaking, that direction would become 'down', because you would get thrown forwards so hard. So, your knife would become a dangerous, fast moving menace as it 'fell' towards that wall."

Harry _could_ imagine it, and did so with no small amount of horror, imagining falling from where he stood to the wall, some ten meters away. The tables, he now noted, were bolted to the floor, along with the benches and the cupboard doors all had latches.

"What about us? How do we not get... splatted?" Harry was frightened by this whole affair, just a little, though he would try not to admit it. He thought that the Professor would probably notice anyway.

"The Admiral, leader of the Poseidon and the Headmaster, always give's ten, five and two minute warnings before he allows manoeuvres, that is... anything that could cause us to rattle around like peas." Snape was ushering him back towards the lift, now, and the hand on his shoulder was quite comforting.

"So there's time to hang on to something?" Harry asked as the boarded the lift up to the spine,

"More than simply 'hang on', you must strap yourself in at a 'take hold'. Here..." He touched a panel in the lift that had a blue border on the bottom left corner and a barrier sprang to life, like the one Harry had used to strap in, in the Norberta. "There are panels like this all over the ship, identifiable by that border. You must, _must_, know the location of the nearest one _at all times_."

Harry nodded vehemently; he had no desire to either disappoint his professor or to end up splatted on a wall that had suddenly become the bottom of a long drop. He felt jittery now, as if the Thrace might suddenly buck under them and throw him to the new 'ground'.

It was strangely mundane when the lift 'ding'ed to tell them it had arrived at their destination. Snape swept out, in his typical manner and Harry followed, with a healthy respect for the long tube that made up the spine. He noticed that there were 'take hold's every few meters, perhaps as many as a hundred, spanning the length of the ship. He remained thoughtful and quiet as Snape led him back towards the reappointed flight deck and the room he had slept in.

As they arrived, he noticed that the walls here did _not_ have take hold's, after all they had been added after the ship was grounded, so he guessed there was no need. He felt a little reassured by that, after all, it could hardly take off now, with so many modifications.

When the corridor with the bathroom at the end came into view, Harry noticed that some of the door's had small black name plates next to them, to the right of the frame. He read 'R. Hagrid' on one and 'S. Snape' on the one opposite, next to one reading 'H.J. Potter' in bold white text. He stopped, staring at the little plate and had to rearrange his head a bit. It wasn't just some room he had slept in... I had _his name_ on it... nothing had had his name on it _officially_ before. That made the room his! _And _it was next to the Professors!

It was really, really weird... He'd known that normal kids got their own rooms and some got two bedrooms, but he'd never... He though back to how Snape had described his anaemia, his 'malnutrition'...

They had thrown him out.

He shivered all over, filled with conflicting emotions. He was free of them, finally, and he hadn't had to steal a car or get admitted to hospital or anything, but at the same time... he had no family, not one person. That was a cold sort of loneliness...

"I have a room." He said to thin air,

"You do, and you will, for as long as you want it." A heavy hand fell on his shoulder and he flinched at first. But after a moment he spun around and threw his arms around Snape's middle, pressing his scarred forehead to the man's chest.

"I want it. I'll want it forever," He choked out. Snape's arms came around his back and pressed down on him comfortably.

"Indeed."

They stood that way for a few minutes while Harry got himself back under control and subdued his shivering. Eventually, Hedwig's chittering made its way through the mess of emotions and he stepped back from the professor, wiping his sleeve over his eyes.

"Thank you, sir." He said, looking up into Snape's eyes, managing to hold his gaze for only a couple of seconds. He couldn't make sense of what the man's face showed, it was faint and complicated and nothing like the bi-polar expressions of his Uncle. It wasn't ... uncomfortable either, though.

"Now, go fetch your supplements and I will explain their purpose and usage." Snape stepped to the right and touched a panel at Harry's head height. The door slid open under its own power and Harry popped in. "They're in the medicines box."

The little jars of pills were in the trunk Snape had brought in earlier, in a box marked with a green cross. Harry hadn't seen it before, but he knew the symbol from the pharmacy near Privet drive. There were other things in there too, like plasters, scissors and a little tube of antiseptic. He brought the whole box out, in the end. Hedwig found the trunk fascinating and Harry left it open so she could explore.

Snape had claimed the desk chair again and Harry sat down on the edge of _his_ bed (his!) and took out the two pill bottles;

"One of each, taken together, after food. Once after breakfast and once after the evening meal." Snape said, taking the jars one by one and breaking their seals. A little chime sounded very quietly from Snape's Interface,

"I will be informed if you have forgotten to take them," He said with a faintly warning tone, handing the bottles back. "I will remind you once, and after that, your reminder will involve lines."

Harry nodded, "I'll do my best to remember, sir," he said truthfully; he had no desire to disappoint him.

"As for the rest, it is the basics and I am trusting you to be mature." Snape looked rather serious, "That means using this for very small things, or things you know the reason for. If you ever are truly injured, or unwell for longer than the half hour it takes headache pills to work, I expect to see you in the Infirmary or my office immediately."

Harry was a little taken aback, Aunt Petunia had rarely given him a plaster or medicine, but when she had, it had been because he wouldn't stop bleeding or was very ill indeed. Perhaps this was something, like the room, that he should put down to his _relatives_ being weird. He had a strong, sad feeling that normal children got plasters and medicine and concerned adults.

"I will, sir. I promise." He said, feeling a bit overwhelmed again, he was starting to get used to being blindsided though. The pill's marked "Ferrous Sulphate" were white and shiny and he had to chase them around before he could pick one up. Snape instructed him to swallow that one whole, with water if he needed it. He didn't. The one's marked "Werniker's Complete Organic Supplement" were orange, about the size of a credit chip and squishy. He chewed it up like a sweet, and though it tasted sugary and orangey, it was a little off. He made a bit of a face and put the bottles back in the medicine box.

"Between those two, it should make up for everything your body has missed _this_ year." Snape watched him put everything away and rescue Hedwig from another sleeve. Once Harry was done, he continued. "However, there is little to be done for the time before that... it may be the case that you will never grow as tall as you would have otherwise."

Harry swallowed hard as he sat down on the edge of his bed; he appreciated Snape's honesty, he really did, and he _had _known that he probably wouldn't 'grow up big and strong' like Dudley, not after the emphasis Aunt Marge had put on Dudley's red meat consumption. Still, it was fairly unpleasant to hear it out loud.

"I... right. So... there's the possibility that I will, though, right?" He said, not feeling hopeful,

"Yes, a small one, if you take your supplements regularly." Snape said, nodding, though his expression remained serious. "Life aboard the Poseidon is not easy, and will be even more strenuous for you, as you are now." Harry didn't know what to think about that, his life before now had not been easy either, but that he, being small and malnourished, would be singled out again was not something he liked the thought of.

"However, we do have a month between now and the departure of the Hogwart's Express. It may be possible to... compensate a little." Harry felt like leaping on that idea, it sounded like a damn good one; he leant forwards with a serious look on his face, listening intently. "I warn you that it will not be easy, however."

"Really sir? I'll work hard, I promise!" He exclaimed; all eagerness and enthusiasm. Hedwig, sitting on his shoulder, mimicked his tone of voice and leaned towards Snape, chittering.

The professor leaned back in his chair, appearing to consider something, eyes flicking over the pair. "You are sure? You would not rather have a month's idle holiday?"

"Sir, I've never been 'idle' in my life, why should I start now? Besides, effort now makes later easier, right?" Snape cringed at that massacre of the English language but nodded, nonetheless.

"Very well. I warn you that I am a hard taskmaster, you may hate me by the end of the week." He said, standing. Harry copied him, looking amused and a little baffled.

"You haven't met Uncle Vernon, sir." He said, not believing that anyone could be worse than his uncle.

"Indeed... pray that I never do," There was a dark look on his face that scared Harry a bit, then, and he wondered what Snape would do to his relatives... He didn't really know how to react to that.


	9. Fish

_AN: Here, this one didn't want to get broken down, so it's a little longer than usual! Thanks for reviewing, you lot, and I hope you enjoy the chapter!_

_Rose_

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><p>Chapter Nine: Fish<p>

The following morning found both Harry and Snape walking towards the front of the grounded ship, dressed in conduction shirts and overcoats. Harry had discovered that Madam Malkin had done a wicked job with his clothes; he'd found four of the shirts carefully packed in a box, interleaved with packing paper. Two were the dark blue he had seen, with forest green panels down from under his arm, over his waist to the hem at his hip. The remaining two were short sleeved, coming down to where mid-bicep would be if Harry had any defining muscles; one with the same pattern in dark red as the long sleeved ones, and one plain, both in an inky black fabric. He'd chosen the plain one for now, feeling that the coloured ones were a little special for just exercising in.

Besides, Snape was wearing plain black.

His overcoat was also damn awesome, he thought. It was made of stiff black fabric in the general design of a military uniform, knee length flair, lapels and epaulets. It had the Poseidon emblem stitched onto his right shoulder and a small, metal patch on the right breast where his official insignia would go. The professor had his rank on the left lapel and his Poseidon insignia on the right... Harry felt inordinately proud; it was getting easier to believe that his life had changed completely, for the better. Hedwig was hugging his shoulder, where the epaulet had been modified so she could cling to it comfortably.

Snape, striding out just ahead of him, was somehow making his uniform snap every time they turned a corner, Harry's just flapped pathetically. Still, he felt very official in his uniform.

Snape was taking him to the Hydroponics bay, to teach him to swim.

Ah. He was rather nervous, having never encountered or entered a large body of water before, but his breather was firmly attached to his belt and his professor had promised to be... thorough. Though a little daunting, this was also reassuring.

The Hydroponics bay was a long way from the fighter deck, down long corridors with sloping floors and take-hold's every few feet. Occasionally they would pass a hatch to the outside world and brilliant blue sunshine would come in through the glass and blind him for a moment. Since this place wasn't designed for gravity it was a little... strange; the main floor was metallic, Harry assumed for the magnetic pads in his boots to cling to, though they weren't active then. Their feet made a sharp thunk with each step which echoed back softened in the long space, it was almost musical.

Doors led off the corridor at indeterminate intervals, some with glass windows in, some without. Once, Harry saw the control room for one of the Thrace's gun emplacements, labelled "Dorsal Spine Armoury". At the next hatch to the outside, he leaned close to the glass and looked back the way they had come; the barrel of the gun was just visible, sticking out into the ocean. It was bigger than he had expected, the barrel was easily as big around as his head; more of a cannon that a gun.

"Step lively, Mr Potter!" Snape called from down the corridor and he scrambled to catch up, jogging lightly. He knew they had passed the habitat ring by that point, he had seen it arching up through the water and over their heads, so he guessed that they were at around the midpoint of the ship.

Snape was standing at a large set of double doors that bisected the corridor with his hand on the release panel. Once Harry had reached him he typed in a short code and the big doors slid open with a hiss. Beyond was a small, white room and another set of doors.

"This is the waterlock, it is not so important while we are in gravity, but aboard the Poseidon it is incredibly significant that one door always remain closed." He lectured to an attentive Harry as the doors closed behind them. "Beyond that door is a garden full of water, three thousand cubic meters of fluid, plants and fish."

Harry was stunned, that was _big_. Not just school-swimming-pool-big, that was... bigger than Harry could really imagine.

"At the moment, it is all resting, like you would expect, gravity-wards, in a pool, with a pocket of air above. However, in zero-g the water is free to move around the entire space. As a result it is kept full, with very little air, to prevent agitation." Harry was looking overwhelmed so Snape amended, "Sloshing."

"Right, sir... So this room?" Harry said, gesturing around at the white cube.

"Indeed. One set of doors is always closed. _Always_. So water and livestock cannot escape, and cause havoc in zero-g. It is also where dry-wear is stored. Uniform jacket, boots and trousers, please." Snape ordered, opening a locker in the wall containing a drawer and some shelves. "You have your shorts?" He asked, already shrugging off his own uniform and putting it in a second locker.

"Yes sir..." Harry said, taking out the green swimming shorts he'd found with his clothes from his bag. He felt weird about getting undressed in front of someone else, Aunt Petunia had always... no. He had promised himself he would not go there. He had looked up "Hence" in the end, and was satisfied with his conclusion:

_If Aunt Petunia would think it was indecent, and she is all... weird about the whole VC thing then she's probably weird about this too, hence, I should ignore it. Her. _

Besides, the professor was being perfectly polite and had his back turned. Harry shrugged out of his uniform jacket, folding it in the locker. He changed quickly to try and avoid displaying his scrawny little body too much and was soon comfortable in his short sleeved conduction shirt and some perfectly respectable, forest green shorts. If his knees were knobbly, well, Snape would just have to deal with that, Harry didn't own any conduction trousers. Hedwig looked a little confused and a bit put out; the conduction shirt didn't have any hand-holds and though her hands stuck nicely to it, it wasn't quite enough to hold her weight. Eventually, Harry scooped her up by hand and put her on his head, it was inelegant, but it left his hands free to pick up his breather and fix it to his waistband. She seemed pleased with this and Snape was waiting for him by the door, wearing black shorts over full length conduction trouser thingies and his conduction shirt. Harry noticed that his feet were like his hands, long and thin, and decided that it was weird to be seeing his professor's bare toes.

"I'm ready sir," He said, his trepidation returning,

"Very well. Welcome to Hydroponics, Mr Potter."

The doors opened almost silently, as if the sound was being absorbed by an immense space and Harry caught his first glimpse of the water. It stretched the length of a vast chamber, smooth and undulating and a brilliant blue. It was sunlit in that same tinted light that had greeted him that morning, the brightness of it was a little shocking. Looking up at the 'ceiling' he let his mouth fall open; the roof was a great arched dome of clear glass, over which fish were swimming quite happily. The dome was only some six feet above the surface of the water but the space felt cavernous because the glass and seawater above it were so clear.

A firm hand between his shoulder blades pushed him through the door and it closed behind them. Once through the doorway they immediately stepped down into the water, standing on a ledge that ran around the waterlock. Harry watched, mesmerised as the ripples from their feet spread out over the calm surface. Looking into the water, he could see things moving, swimming around and drifting in unseen currents, plants, and fish and... other things. Green things and red things and orange things seemed to be growing in abundance, sitting apparently stationary on the pool floor in ordered patterns, arcs and curls.

The water lapping around their ankles was warm, though cooler than bathwater, and not unpleasant; Harry wiggled his toes and looked down, discovering that a small fish was investigating his foot. It was only a few inches long and had purple skin? Scales? He didn't know...

"Thrace, command authorisation Sierra Whiskey." Snape raised his voice and appeared to be addressing the air, it made Harry jump a little. "Barrier; X-ray naught, Yankee minus one-point-two, Zulu two-point-five, Elevation; Yankee zero."

As Harry watched, the little fish darted away and a glowing blue barrier emerged from the side of the bay, about a meter down from where they stood and extended the width of a broad corridor into the pool. It was level, _well, compared to gravity, anyway,_ Harry thought to himself, still trying to get his head around how this place would look without gravity.

Snape lowered himself down into the water with a hand on the ledge and stood on the barrier he had requested. To Harry's relief, the water only came up to his waist so he knew he'd be able to stand up too.

"Come, Mr Potter." He said, beckoning with one hand. Harry looked around for some way to climb down but there wasn't a ladder or anything... after a moment he sat down on the edge of the ledge, in about ten centimetres of water, and dropped his legs off the edge. It was comfortable, as warm as the water was and he cautiously shuffled towards the edge, letting his legs dangle deeper and deeper.

"Oh for crying out..." He was most of the way there when Snape's patience gave out and the man picked him up bodily and plunked him in the water. Harry scrambled, his mouth tightly closed, and struggled until he realised that his professor was not letting him go and that he could, indeed, touch the barrier. He calmed down after that, though he still held on to Snape's arms just in case. He realised that he was getting a funny look again and blushed,

"Sorry sir..." He slowly, carefully, let go of him, making sure that he had his balance before giving up on his steadying hold, the barrier felt pretty slippery.

"Do not mention it. You do realise that there is a Lemuro on your head? She appears to have made a nest..." One of Snape's narrow eyebrows rose almost to his hairline.

"Yes sir."

"This does not bother you?" He asked, a little incredulously, giving Hedwig a gimlet eye as he drew his hair back into a pony tail. She had curled up on Harry's head, gripping a tuft of hair in each paw and curling her feathery tail over her back.

"No sir." Harry said with a little smile. Hedwig was staring back at Snape with a solemn expression on her little pink face. He sighed,

"Very well, Lemuro's are very capable swimmers, no doubt she will enjoy this..."

So the lesson began, first was holding one's breath under water, because it would not do to be too used to using a breather, just in case it malfunctioned (unlikely, Snape said,) or you had to go without. Harry discovered that the new glasses Snape had given him functioned a little like goggles; the refractive barrier expanded to seal a patch of air in over his eye and he could see with excellent clarity when he ducked his head under the water. Looking over at Snape, he realised that he was either wearing something similar or had that rare ability to keep his eyes open underwater. Harry felt Hedwig let go and float off his head, her tail stirring the water by his ear. She dived down, patting his cheek with one hand and touching his glasses with the other; he gave her a massive grin, getting a little water in his mouth. It tasted weird and slightly fishy but was fresh. He took a moment to look around, the creatures and plants filling the Hydroponics bay were numerous and colourful, huge beds of weed that looked a lot like the stuff that had been in his dinner the night before stretched out to one side and a bank of blue-green vines grew wildly below the barrier they were stood on. Underwater, he felt very light, like there was nothing pulling him down and he wondered if that was what zero-g felt like.

He stood up once his air ran out, breathing out as he reached the surface to get the water out of his nose and mouth, like Snape had told him.

Hedwig was sliding happily through the water; her fur had flattened down and made her sleek. She was obviously holding her wing membranes tight against her sides with her front arms tucked up under her chin and was kicking out using her legs. Her tail was beating the water and steering and Harry noticed that if the feathers ever came out of the water, they were perfectly dry.

Snape talked him through floating on his back, and then had him turn over onto his front and copy Hedwig with his arms and legs, kicking and pushing the water to keep his head up. It was hard work and a little frustrating, he kept getting splashes of water in his mouth or it would get up his nose and make him sneeze and choke. They took a break after about half an hour, since Harry was shaky and breathing hard. As much as Snape had said he would be a hard taskmaster, this was nothing compared to the harshness of the Dursley's; Snape was watching him, always, his hands supported Harry's back as he tried to float, grabbed his shoulders when he sank... Harry really, really, couldn't care less if he was tired, or aching, or that his throat stung from panting; he sat slightly slumped on the ledge, his legs in the water and tipped his head up to see the ocean. If his eyes watered a bit, Snape didn't notice, or perhaps, simply didn't comment.

Hedwig took the chance to take a break too, as they sat on the ledge, dripping. Snape quiet and content to watch the fish swimming about under and beyond the barrier intently, so inevitably, the little lemuro got bored and went back to swimming and chasing fish again. She never caught anything however, because as she reached out to grab something, her wing membranes stretched out and slowed her down. Harry did notice something interesting though, when she dived, she changed how she used her legs; instead of kicking one at a time she beat them together in tandem with an undulating flick of her tail.

Since he had his breath back, Harry thought he'd try it.

"I'm just going to practice underwater for a bit, sir." He said, dropping off the ledge and into the not-so-scary-anymore pool. He took a deep breath and let himself sink down. His lungful kept him mostly at the surface, bobbing a hand span beneath it. He kicked off after a second and tried to copy the Lemuro's waving motion, keeping both his feet together like a dolphin. It propelled him more quickly than what he had been doing before, but he couldn't raise his head above the surface without having to stop. All the same, it felt much more natural and he could steer. Just to prove it, he swam away from the waterlock and did a tight turn to swim back. Admittedly, not taking a breath was probably a problem. He stood up again with a gasp after a few feet, smiling broadly. Snape had followed him and was treading water just off the side of the barrier.

"Yes, yes, well done, Mr. Potter, you can now swim." The man quirked an eyebrow, "This was the easy bit, you realise?"

Harry grinned back at him at the praise, as sarcastic as the tone had been,

"Now you have learnt how to not drown, we will be pushing even harder, for fitness and stamina."

There was splashing and ripples spread out as Snape clambered onto the barrier beside him, his shoulders coming up out of the water. Fiddling with the breather still attached to Harry's waistband, he flipped open the cover of the controls and adjusted the settings. Harry watched carefully, trying to remember what the man did so that he could check the settings himself and holding his arms awkwardly away from his body.

"This controls whether the extractor is optimised for air or water, or the feed from a ship." he explained as he flicked a slider towards a small printed 'W', as opposed to the 'A' it had been set to before and the as-yet-unused 'F'. "Oxygen content, filtration level..." These two he set to '21%' and '0%' respectively.

"Do not change this yourself until you have had the proper training. It is covered in the first week of real term and I will supplement that for the additional high-oxygen functions; we need not waste the time now. Here," The professor handed Harry the mask, which he dutifully put over his nose and mouth. As he was wondering how Snape had secured it last time, the plastic around the edge shifted slightly and he could feel it gripping his skin. It was sort of sticky... and sort of like Hedwig's hands. He gave it a brief tug to make sure it wouldn't come off, and then looked up at Snape again,

"Thank you, sir." His voice was a little muffled and hollow sounding but it was still understandable. Snape appeared to be in the process of fitting his own mask, which was different to Harry's in that it was opaque, in a dark gunmetal gray colour, and hugged his jaw a little more. Harry found it slightly disconcerting that he could not see the man's mouth but it was his eyes that spoke the most about what he was thinking anyway, he realised. At the moment, they looked calm. It was good enough for Harry.

"Now, it will feel unnatural to take a breath underwater, just try to breathe normally." Snape's voice was muffled too, but perfectly understandable.

Swimming completely under water was much better than having to constantly come up for air; Harry dived, leaving Hedwig behind at the surface. He felt much less awkward under water, but it was still pretty hard to get all his limbs moving together. Eventually, he made it down past the barrier to have a look at the vine-thingy that was growing there and was happy to discover that it was covered with the berries Aaron the Neptunian had introduced him to. He touched one lightly and it was dislodged from its vine. It floated loosely for a moment, and then took off, swimming automatically. He caught it so he could have a good look and its tendrils tickled his palm.

This place was officially awesome.

Eventually he let it go, by which point he had floated back to the surface, and pointed it sideways so that Hedwig could chase it if she liked, he figured it would be a little easier to catch than the fish.

Snape allowed him to explore a bit and he gloried in all the varied things that were kept in the bay. He recognised a fish that Aaron had been selling, as well as some he had cooked for the Dursleys, and investigated the algae Snape had fed him last night. He was, in turn, investigated by various inhabitants of the garden as a potential food source; a cleaning shrimp had tried to clean between his toes; a distinctly unusual and startling sensation.

Eventually, Snape reminded him why they were there and they began to swim the length of the room. The varied nature of the things grown and raised there kept it interesting, but Harry had to work hard to keep up with Snape, even though he was sure the man could swim a lot faster. He was soon panting into his mask and swimming with a concentrated single mindedness that could, by a long stretch of the imagination, be called peaceful. It certainly cleared his head.

By the time they reached the far end of the bay, Harry needed a rest, and was informed of this fact by a stern Snape, his voice sounding weird and distorted through the water. He let himself drift to the surface and looked up through the clear ceiling to the sea above. The sun was still shinning, and the surface, all that way up, was bright. After a minute he dived again and found a spot against the wall where he could tuck himself in to stop himself floating away. The floor appeared to be made up of gravel that had been glued together to make a porous seabed for the various seaweeds and molluscs to grow on. He watched from there, sitting with his back against the bay wall, as Snape pulled out a net bag from his shorts pocket and began to collect some freshwater mussels.

Harry was a little envious of the smooth, economical movements of his new friend... Was he allowed to call someone so much older than him a friend? But he really did want to be Severus Snape's friend... He was kind and strong, and the way he had dealt with Harry's health problems had been honest and to the point. There had been no ridicule, no teasing about passing out, just warmth and help.

Harry was more than aware that his current shortness of breath was unnatural, it still had not faded, even after Snape had collected a meals worth of mussels and was taking a small hooked knife to the bed of weed. His limbs felt slightly shaky when he moved them, like when he had offered his palm to a fish as it tasted his skin. Still, if exercising would help him get better, he wouldn't begrudge it, especially since the hydroponics bay was so cool...

Looking around, he could see quite a few of the unidentified vegetables he'd seen in his stew at the Leaky Airlock, growing vigorously under water. One strongly resembled an onion, only its leaves looked nothing like the wilted tops he'd seen occasionally and the bulbs formed in a progressive sequence up the plant's stem, instead of just having one at the bottom. The leaves fanned out in kelp-like ribbons, think, dark green and rubbery. Harry smiled as he looked around at this garden, he could see all sorts of vegetables that he recognised, but didn't, at the same time! Like the carrots, the tubers of which grew sideways, up out of the parent plants' base.

"Why grow all this stuff in water? Why don't you just have a garden?" He asked as Snape came over to gather some of the vegetables with his special knife.

"Do not forget, this place is usually in zero-g, soil and such would be a decided nuisance. The hydroponics bay also allows the growth of animal protein in a way far more convenient than taking a bovine into space." Snape spoke calmly and with authority, Harry thought it sounded very pleasant and he laughed at the image of a cow floating around freely, chewing cud.

"I see what you mean, sir. It's cool, too." He wriggled his toes at the fauna, "I like it here. Is everything edible?" He said, thinking of the little, brightly coloured shrimp that had tried to clean his foot earlier, it had been practically transparent apart from the red stripes down its flanks.

"No, a portion consists of regulatory species..." Harry's politely questioning expression pressed him to elaborate, "They maintain the ecosystem, improving the stocks of useful organisms." He paused in his gathering, his bag was nearly full by then, and searched briefly for something,

"Ah, this, for example." He shook out the fronds of an onion-weed and a fish darted out, flashed a yellow and blue flank at him in irritation and disappeared again. "A wrasse, they remove parasites and keep the other fish healthy." As he said 'other' the gestured up into the water, where the large majority of the fish swam in leisurely shoals. These were the fish that Harry recognised from cooking them, though he was pretty sure most of them were supposed to live in _salt_ water.

"You've made a lot of changes, haven't you? To the fish and plants and stuff... it's like another world." He commented slightly dazedly as he drifted on his back, looking up at the shoal of what looked like mackerel.

"Indeed, you will study them in Hydroponics classes and Aquaculture, that's plants and animals respectively." Snape said as he closed up the string bag and tied it to his waistband. That started another discussion of Harry's upcoming education as they made their way back to the waterlock and Hedwig. They did not strike out this time, going at their leisure, as Snape taught Harry the basics of the ecosystem kept on the Thrace, explaining how it was different from the one on the Poseidon, since the Thrace held very few people.

He went on at some length about the experimental organisms he had established, with a view to refining out medicines; he mentioned salicylic acid at one point. It was interesting and Snape's reserved nature made the hint of enthusiasm all the more entertaining.

Before they surfaced, Snape had Harry help him fill a second bag with the strange blue shan'tic berries, they squirmed alarmingly but Harry had great fun snatching the things out of the water as they began to swim off.

They were greeted by an ecstatic Hedwig when they were done, she had blue streaks on her chin and Harry realised that she must have caught the shan'tic he'd sent her way. He was rewarded with his first view of her flying; she had perched on the 'emergency disengage' lever on the door and leapt off it. Harry prepared to get splashed, watching with amusement and then wonder as she, instead of landing, belly first, in the water, she spread her arms and glided gently onto his head. The soft skin of her wings, furry on one side and velveteen on the other, brushed against his face and her feathery tail briefly obscured his vision. She soon settled and he brought a hand up to stroke her back; she really was incredibly light, he thought, and perfectly dry, though his stroking fingers left a streak of water on her back.

There was a hiss as Snape disengaged his mask, standing up on the barrier below the door, his ponytail dripping and water flowing off his conduction shirt.

"Um, Sir? How do I...?" Harry gestured at his mask, since tugging on it didn't seem to shift it. Harry was feeling a bit fuzzy, and didn't think to look at the module on his waistband. Snape was looking at him like _that_ again, like a doctor, as he waded towards him and Harry shrunk slightly under the inspection.

"The release is a concealed button, here." Snape took the module off his waist and tipped it up so the tubes came out of the bottom end. He pointed to a clear shield covering a thumb sized button on the uppermost end. "It will release upon a single press in air, a double tap under water, and two long taps when in a gel-system fighter." He flipped open the cover and presented the button to Harry, who took the module and pressed the release with his thumb, catching the mask with his free hand. "This is a safety feature, to avoid your unfortunate demise."

Harry looked thoughtfully at the small device, carefully winding the two tubes as they had lain, clipped to the side of the module, when he bought it.

"I can see the logic, sir... it'd be a bit crap if you pressed it by accident under water, but you might want to get it off quickly..." He said, staring off into the middle distance.

"Indeed; a trade-off between convenience and safety. Come now, we are finished here." Snape said, placing his hands on the ledge around the waterlock and hauling his long legs out of the water. Easy for him... the ledge was at chest height for Harry. He dithered for a moment, while Snape was giving the door the release code, before turning his back on the ledge, getting his arms up on it and hauling himself up. With a bit of kicking he got his bum on the ledge but once there he was shocked to find his arms shaking and his head very heavy indeed. He slumped forwards, resting his elbows on his knees.

"Oh..." It didn't feel like fainting, that was a light headedness and a darkening of vision, this just felt like all of his body was very, very heavy. A firm hand gripped his shoulder and prevented his near tumble back into the water proper.

"Stay calm, Harry, you have done a lot of exercise this morning, it would be strange if you did not feel the effects. You have been on restricted activity for far too long..." Snape's deep, calm voice was infinitely soothing and he was able to analyse what he was feeling a little more logically. It did feel a bit like the evening of a very hard day, like when he had to cut the edged of the lawn with the hand-clippers, it had taken forever and the clippers were rusty and stiff and his hand hurt... He shook his head clear and smiled weakly at Snape,

"Sorry sir, I'm fine, just... a minute?" Looking up, he realised that the man had already knelt beside him, when had that happened?

"An hour, perhaps, and some glucose. That is what the shan'tic is for." Without further fuss, Snape gathered Harry up and stood, carrying him and Hedwig into the waterlock. Harry tipped his head to Snape's shoulder so that Hedwig could climb off, since she was shifting about restlessly, and if his head stayed there, well, that was his business. Harry soon found himself wrapped in a large towel and being rubbed down. It invigorated him a little and he managed to get dry and dressed without needing any embarrassing help, though it was accomplished mostly sitting down on the floor. He thought that it would have been useful to have a bench, but corrected himself; what would the point be in zero-g? His hair, once again, ended up in a vertical nest, though Hedwig chose to cling to his uniform jacket instead this time.

Snape had finished long before Harry and he could hear the soft clatter of mussel shells and some dripping as he sorted the produce out. Once the mussels and vegetables were dry and stored in a satchel, he could feel the professor's eyes on him again. Harry was still fussing with the jacket's double breast and failing spectacularly to get it fastened, but at least he was decent. Snape's shadow fell across him and he felt so very small, smiling wryly up at him and giving up on the buttons.

How was it that Snape managed to look so very proper? With his black uniform buttoned smartly and high boots zipped and laced. The magnetic toe of those boots clicked against the floor as Snape crouched next to him and dropped the bag of now-dry and still berries in his lap before picking him up like a child. It was nice to be treated like one, for once. Like the night before, when Snape had stayed until he was nearly asleep...

He felt _safe_, held against Snape's chest like that, despite the lurch the world made as the man stood up.

"Eat, Mr Potter."


	10. Sleepy

_AN: Only two reviews for the last chapter, Sad face. Very sad face, but! I am a benevolent author, and you can have the next chapter anyway. Enjoy, and comments on what you think happened to Remus and Sirius will earn Points! _

Chapter Ten: Sleepy

The boy's face was pale, but not worryingly so; though Severus had done his best to conceal the hard exercise and subsequent cool down to avoid stress, it had still been a lot for a small boy. It remained that the twiggy little body was far too light... he would not usually contemplate carrying a first year for any length of time, but he did not see it being a problem in this case.

He used a voice command to open the waterlock's exit, watching that he did not knock the boy's feet on the hatch.

Harry had performed admirably, picking up the basics quickly. Snape was not confident enough to allow the boy to swim in anything deeper than about 1.2 meters without a breather and certainly not alone, but all the same, he had gotten around well enough. His obvious curiosity was gratifying too. That he was still capable of that was a good sign and Snape would simply answer as many questions as he could.

Glancing down, Severus realised that Harry was not eating but rather staring dazedly into the middle distance and looking sleepy. He gave him a little jog with the arm under his shoulders,

"Must I remind you again?" the gaunt little face looked up at him and grinned wryly. _Honestly; must his eyes be so very green?_ The expression looked out of place on a child's face and Severus was reminded of Hagrid's chilling description;

"_An... an' e' looks old, like..."_

"Sorry, sir. I get a bit... dazed when I'm tired." He said, pulling open the string bag and eating one of the berries.

"Do try and remain coherent, you may rest when we get to the Mess." Severus swept down the corridor to the lift smoothly and swiftly and they reached their destination much quicker than they would have, had Harry been walking.

Once in the Mess, he set the boy on the counter, propping him in the right-angle made by the wall and a cupboard. He seemed to have eaten a good number of berries, enough that Severus was confident that he would last the half hour it will take to make lunch. He snorted quietly to himself; even the little Lemuro was tired out. Taking a step back, he watched for a moment to make sure Harry would not fall, then swiftly unbuttoned his jacket and folded it on the counter. With his sleeves safely out of the way, he turned the hotplate on and set some pasta cooking while he prepared the mussels.

The boy perked up after a few minutes and looked at the modified vegetables Severus had left near his hip and he took it as a cue to begin a mild lecture on 'domestic' hydroponics.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That first day of exercise was hard, but not terrible, Harry decided. He hadn't realised it at the time, but the exercise had been just as much as he could take. After lunch, he'd slept and read and played with Hedwig, but hadn't been good for much else.

The second day was worse.

He woke early, the sun was shafting through the water at a steep angle, dim and pinkish with dawn, but Harry wasn't in a position to appreciate it. His limbs felt so very heavy and ached but when he tried to move, that ache multiplied and his muscles rebelled; he was forced to slump bonelessly on his mattress. His position, lying curled on his side, was quickly becoming uncomfortable but he knew not to move too quickly. He was familiar with the feeling; too often had his relatives pushed him too far and he had felt it the next day, each and every time. Snape had said that Harry would hate him, by the end of the first week, and he could see why but that truly wasn't something he was capable of...

All the same, a thrill of nervousness rippled over him and he moved slowly to get up again, failing just as spectacularly with a whimper that summoned Hedwig from her water bowl like a shot. Her cool hands, chilled by the metal bowl, touched his face in a gesture that was quickly becoming familiar and he reassured her in a soft voice.

When Snape arrived, he had managed little more than rolling onto his back and Harry couldn't decide between being glad to see him and being deeply ashamed of his state. The door swished closed behind the professor, who Harry noted was carrying his silver box of medical... stuff.

"Good morning, Professor, Sorry, um... I..." He stuttered, blushing and batting ineffectively at the covers. Hedwig chattered, irritated, at him and took swift refuge on the pillow above his head.

"Morning indeed, Mr Potter. Lie still," He commanded in a calm voice which Harry obeyed nervously, freezing and trying to convince himself that this was the same as that first night, that he should not be... afraid, or ashamed, or whatever this was that made him want to stop looking quite so pathetic in front of his teacher.

"Yes, sir. I'm pretty sore." Snape simply nodded and held out his silver box. It sat horizontally on the air, as stable as if it was on a table, and he opened it swiftly and lifted things out, including a bulky syringe with no needle on and, oddly enough, no plunger. Harry eyes widened, but he replayed the moment after his last encounter with Medical Officer Snape, when everything had been _just fine_. He was determined not to make a fool of himself.

"Pain relief, topical muscle relaxant, hot pads." Snape said, placing each item, in turn on Harry's bedside table; first the syringe, then a tube of salve, and finally two plastic pouches filled with blue gel with a coil embedded in it. The man sat down next to Harry's waist, making the bed dip slightly and picked up the pain killer.

"This should work immediately, and we will attempt to appease your, no doubt _uncomfortable,_ muscles." Snape offered the syringe to Harry's mouth, which he opened obediently, and the dose deposited itself on his tongue. He grimaced in distaste immediately and the urge to spit the thick, sticky, bitter fluid out was strong. Snape's fingers holding his jaw shut were gentle and insistent, however, and Harry swallowed reluctantly. The goop, for want of a better term, stuck to the sides of his mouth and throat unpleasantly and _slimed_ its way down his throat. Snape's face was distinctly amused as he turned away to put the syringe in the bin and Harry made a face at him before he realised what he was doing; there was no immediate retribution, however, and Harry relaxed again. He was most of the way through rubbing at his mouth with the back of his hand before he realised that the movement no longer hurt; he broke into an immediate grin and begun testing his other limbs as well.

"Wow... thank you, sir..." He said with genuine gratitude, which the professor just snorted at dismissively.

"On your front, Harry, and take your shirt off." Snape ordered, keeping his back turned. Harry blinked at this but obeyed anyway, speaking up when he was done. Snape didn't say anything after that, as he rubbed in the salve and pressed the hot pads over Harry's shoulders, one on either side of his spine where the worst of the ache had been. Harry kept his head buried in the pillow and suppressed his whimper of relief.

That done and the salve given a few minutes to work in under the influence of the heat, Snape had run Harry through some thorough stretches, which Harry found reduced the remaining stiffness to manageable levels. Snape announced him fit and sent him to have a bath, specifically in hot water, and wash the left over salve off.

They made breakfast together, which Harry found as nice as cooking lunch together the day before and were soon back in the Hydroponics bay. Again, once they had finished the first length, to the far end of the bay, they returned more slowly, collecting the occasional ingredient and having a lesson on the things around them. Lunch and rest followed and Harry slept for most of the afternoon.

Snape made him stretch again after dinner and this time he found the burning muscles to be a not-unpleasant sensation and found pulling them out to be immensely satisfying, almost like pulling off a scab.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The first two weeks passed easily and quietly like that, as Harry slowly got stronger and more co-ordinated in the water. The mornings got progressively easier as his muscles caught up to the activity and he even began to notice that his eyes took less time to adjust to changes in light levels. He soon had enough energy to help with lunch more actively and Severus was sad to discover his very high proficiency; the boy cooked like an adult.

On Harry's part, he was finding it novel and strange to have specific time to himself each afternoon. He read, and watched the fish outside his window, played with Hedwig... It was surreal and time and time again, he found himself waiting, watching and listening for the next barked order, or exclamation of disappointment. It was easy to remember that the Dursley's were not around but difficult to _know_, in the deep, animal parts of his mind, that they were not going to appear at his door. He found himself appreciating the Professor's company outside of these times, because he could concentrate on him, then.

They did not speak of the Dursley's, 'for now' Snape said, and Harry relaxed as time passed.

Hagrid came and went, once bringing a batch of biscuits that a planet-born had made, which they enjoyed together. Hearing about other students made Harry curious about the Academy, made him worry about it, so he studied in the afternoons; when he was awake at least.

Snape mentioned the different subject teachers when he was familiarizing Harry with the material; Harry found it harder to be apprehensive about a class when he knew that the teacher had a soft spot for Oscar the Octopus, or a particular liking for cats. He taught him how to come to attention, how to be 'at ease', what muster was. He gave him a formal check-up every two days, but Harry knew that he was watching whenever they were in the same space, which was often. He taught him how to give a status report; concise and of pertinent information; Harry began to have a feel for what life would be like, the structure and order that was required on board a Battle Cruiser. Slowly, his nerves diminished into excitement and anticipation.

Snape didn't ever leave him alone for very long, a few hours each afternoon in case he needed to sleep off the mornings exercise, but otherwise, kept him company. It was nice and novel; Harry was used to being alone for days, sometimes. Hours, certainly... Here, he and Snape were alone, but in good company. Harry thought it might have something to do with his frailty; some days he had trouble doing his stretches in the morning and Snape would be there to gently pull his muscles out or rub a heating gel into the tendons of the offending joint, usually a knee or ankle. Six times he fell asleep over lunch or playing with Hedwig and six times he found himself waking up, warm and comfortable in his bed.

Occasionally he would sit at his window, with its panoramic view of the sea bed and let himself be sad about the Dursleys. Or angry. He thought that he should probably be confused too, but he'd always known that they hadn't wanted him... which he found sad in and of its self. They had constantly reminded him that there was very little between him and the dreaded orphanage. Such thoughts always left him nervous and unsettled, nothing had really changed; he was still just Harry, and all he had to reassure himself was the nameplate on his door and a seven-year promise for schooling, it was all a bit too intangible. But then, when he was feeling sad, Hedwig would always drop whatever she was investigating and come to comfort him. She was very tangible indeed; her long, feathery tail would curl around his throat, her sticky little hands would bury in his hair and Harry would remember the things Hagrid had told him on his first and best birthday.

He was in such a state, staring out of the window solemnly when Snape turned up, some thirteen days after their arrival to the Thrace. He heard the man come in; his heavy magnetic boots made a deep-toned thump even if Snape walked very lightly, which he did most of the time. It wasn't the first time Harry had been caught like this; Snape had never mentioned anything before but Harry had a feeling that his 'for now' had just run out.

"Mr Potter." came the soft greeting from just behind his left shoulder, accompanied by a warm hand on his right.

"Professor." Harry replied just as softly and looked up past the stern face to black eyes glittering with concern and eyebrows slightly pinched into a frown.

"Are you comfortable here? The food, the exercise?" He was asked as the hand tightened on his shoulder fractionally.

Harry didn't know what to say, it wasn't how he had imagined this conversation going... "I... yes, it's good and I'm stronger and..." He stopped his stuttering and let his shoulders droop; he knew what the professor was truly asking. "No..." He let the pause drag out as he thought about how to say it, the eventually it just burst out of him, all on its own. "I know you won't send me to the orphanage, I do! You've been great and helped me and are healing me and...! but I can't _believe _it! I'm no use, you don't let me clean, or do the breakfast on my own, or make dinner. I _know_ the Dursley's were weird and wrong and logically, it all makes sense, but they were family and even they made me earn my keep! And I feel like... What's going to happen when you finally work it out, and I've spent all this time being useless and pathetic?" Harry realised that he was short of breath, as if he'd just run up stairs then found the thought absurdly out of place, considering ships didn't have stairs. He tried to stop and take a deep breath but pent up tension wound around his ribs and tightened; stopping his efforts in his throat.

Hedwig's frantic chattering filtered through the rapidly darkening haze, along with Snape's voice, telling him something he couldn't grasp. He felt the world tilt and heard a shocking and rather darkly muttered swearword before being swept in close to Snape's torso and thumped soundly on his back. The blow knocked all the air out of him and the tightness across his ribs disappeared with it. He drew in a huge shuddering breath and the haze and buzzing in his ears receded.

"-hoped this wouldn't happen, by Orion's great codpiece... Harry? Concentrate, Mr Potter; can you hear me?" Large hands were smoothing over the, admittedly slightly tender, spot where Snape had thumped him and holding his head stable. Which was fortunate; Harry did not feel stable at all. He made his breathing even out by dint of will, remembering to actually breathe _out_ this time;

"I can hear you," He croaked, "Sorry, sir..."

Snape's chest expanded against his side and the sigh that followed ruffled his hair, "So it would seem; do not apologise for something I should have spoken to you about a week ago."

The world tipped and shifted and Snape gathered him up again, like he sometimes did after swimming. Harry blinked slowly into the middle distance as he was carried across the room but Hedwig was having none of it; she was clinging tightly to his shirt with her feet and Harry could feel feathers against his belly from where her tail had curled through the gap between shirt buttons. Her hands came up and stuck to his cheeks and much chattering was done until he looked her in the eye and at least tried to smile.

Snape sat down of the edge of the bed but did not put him down, Harry was grateful; he was warm and experience had told him that he was safe like this, secure.

"I won't be sent to an Orphanage, will I?" He asked, calmer.

"No, you won't. Albus Dumbledore will not let that happen, just as Hagrid, and I, would not." Snape assured, his voice rumbling inches from Harry's ear. "Now that we have you, we will not let you go."

Harry's throat constricted and his eyes burned; Hedwig patted the tears away when they escaped. "But _why_? I don't understand... I'm not my mum, or my dad, I didn't fight in the war, I'm just an errand boy for some fat, lazy mudder!" He knew he was very close to a growl and that a bit of his anger at his uncle was escaping his control.

"You're right, you aren't your father, or Lily Evans, as much as I expected you to be, as much as you look like him. But you are still their son." Snape's arms tightened around him and he pressed in closer; the man's voice had hitched and Harry wanted to comfort him, like he was comforting Harry. "Lily and James Potter were well loved, Harry, and we would care for you just for that, even if we had not already seen your courage and strength."

Harry shivered and shook his head, keeping it tucked in close to Snape's chest, "Then WHY? Why the Dursleys? Why..." His voice broke and he couldn't continue; speaking the name was bad enough.

"Fear, Harry. Terrible and twisted fear..." Snape's voice grew gravely and harsh,

"The war had just ended... it was madness; broken, dying ships filled the lanes. Shrapnel punched holes in our hulls for months after the fighting had ended and our home stations were in pieces, loosing air. The stories filled the news, even down here. Dumbledore sent you planet-side with your godfather and his... friend in the hopes that you would be kept free of the chaos. They were supposed to keep you safe, but that was before we discovered the spy in our ranks. He... Peter Pettigrew, destroyed them both before he met his own end."

Harry sobbed and shook; he didn't want to know that people who had cared for him had been betrayed and didn't want to feel the anger lurking under his skin. He gripped Snape's uniform jacket, hard and bit into the fabric at his wrist to restrain the turmoil. He didn't want to think about how, in weak moments in his cupboard, he had wished his parents had not been so selfish as to die, or about his anger at what had been his lot in life.

"They did not die but... they didn't survive either. I'm sorry, Harry... Their madness was not something we could save them from. You may meet them, one day."

Harry could just nod; what could he say to that? His throat was too tight and his mind too jumbled to do anything else.

"Without your godfather, there was no one to protect you from the Terran government; your DNA was used to find your closest blood relative and we could do nothing. For years, VCers weren't allowed into the atmosphere, let alone planet-side; we were anathema, creatures of war and known mostly from vid's of the destruction. By the time planet-side trading was allowed again, your aunt had been convinced to take out a restraining order on VCers in general and the Poseidon in particular, by her husband. We fought hard, Harry... I promise you that; your godfather, Black and his companion, Lupin were deported to Ottery Station, and Dumbledore petitioned the government time on time... but the war was simply too high a hurdle. I am so sorry, Harry..." He murmured into Harry's hair, his voice having gotten quieter and softer as he had gone on. The silence stretched on and Harry made the effort to put himself back together, feeling changed and unbalanced by what had been said.

"So you tried, at least... thanks, for doing that much, it means a lot." He said through his daze, overwhelmed.

"We did not want to leave you there, Harry, you are one of us and many could not bear to let you go. Many people will be very happy to see you." Harry pushed himself up a little, so he could look Snape in the eye.

"Like Madam Malkin?" he asked wryly.

"Like Madam Malkin." Snape replied with absolute certainty.

"She was nice, I liked her." He said, tentatively, happy to move on to other things. He would think about what Snape had said, just... not right now.

"Indeed." There was a long pause, Harry wiped his eyes on the handkerchief Snape handed him surreptitiously and then wriggled off his lap.

"I, um... er. Thank you." Harry gave up trying to explain and looked up into black eyes, hoping that Snape would understand. He did;

"You're welcome, Harry." A warm hand landed on his shoulder as Snape stood up and Harry kept his eyes on his Professors face, seeing the deep richness of emotion in his stoic expression, for all that it remained still. "Now, it is approaching six o'clock, it is time to make our way to the Mess."

The hand on his shoulder gave a brief squeeze and Harry nodded, glad that he had not given in to the panic attack and could 'make his way' on his own two feet. "Yes sir." He said, rubbing his face with his hands again to banish some of the muzz left by his crying. "Hedwig!" He called; she had vanished when he had stood. Her little face popped up over Snape's shoulder, who turned his head towards her and raised a sardonic eyebrow,

"To your Master, little one." He said, making a shooing gesture with one hand; she chattered back at him for a half second before jumping and gliding to Harry's outstretched forearm. Soon after, they were headed to the Mess, where they had a quiet, introspective meal.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The following day, Snape appeared much earlier than usual in the afternoon; Harry was just opening screens at his desk to read about the mysterious game called 'Quidditch', played in zero g, and the sport of all spacers, be they sky-born or earth-born. One showed a vid of a professional game, another, an excerpt from the Poseidon Handbook and a third, a rundown of positions. It was enthralling to watch, even if he hadn't a clue yet as to _what_, exactly, was going on, and he had trouble tearing his eyes away from the vid in order to look up what the '0' on the most mobile player's back referred to. He paused it when his door swished open and turned to greet Snape; he stood to attention, like Snape had showed him a few days ago, with a grin. Snape's look of veiled amusement made it worthwhile; the professor had told him that only 'captain on deck' required coming to attention without being explicitly told to, but Harry had argued that _technically_ Snape was the Thrace's captain, sort of.

"At ease, Mr Potter," he said as his trouser leg was assaulted by Hedwig as she climbed it to greet him. He gave her his hand once she reached his knee and she stuck to it with her strong little hands, "Hedwig." He gave her a serious nod as he held her up at face level. Harry smiled at her antics and relaxed his posture.

"Afternoon, sir." The lemuro glided back to him, and he held out his arm for her to land on.

"Indeed."He replied, his amusement lingering under his stern features. He tugged his sleeve down, ostensibly to straighten it, though Hedwig was so light that she hadn't affected it much. "Get a conduction shirt on, Harry. I think it's time you tried your Interface again."

Harry's heart leapt in excitement and he nodded quickly; they had spoken about that, and he had been waiting for Snape's go-ahead eagerly. His trunk was open before the door had closed behind the Professor and Hedwig got an excited, one armed hug as he pulled out the full length black and green shirt, which he had yet to wear. The neoprene-like material hugged very close to his skin; it had to touch everywhere to be effective. He adjusted the collar, pulling it up to the back of his head, and almost felt the ghost of the few moments in which he had worn the Interface before. It was truly exhilarating.

The excitement blew away the last of the cobwebs and thoughts of strange sports from Harry's head as he lifted out the secure metal box that had been packed so carefully in his trunk. He hurried to follow the Professor, palming the control to the sliding door and only controlling his bouncing by standing to attention in the half-second it took to open, Hedwig on his shoulder. Snape was just returning from his room, uniform coat and his personal data pad in hand, and raised an eyebrow at Harry's impatience; Harry looked down at himself and found himself shoeless.

Snape recommended he change his trousers too, to the non-absorbent shorts he'd been wearing for swimming in, and to grab his breather, Harry didn't know why. So it was a few minutes later than Harry had hoped when they began walking towards what the professor called his 'lab', explaining that it was where he ran cybernetic gel research over the summer. Harry had a brief thought that he had been taking all the man's time, away from something, it was apparent, that he found deeply interesting. He dismissed the thought quickly, however; now was not the time, and lengthened his stride.

Hedwig was left behind in the end, much to her confusion, with a mussel to pry open and some fruit, which soon distracted her.


	11. Interface

_AN:I think some of you have been looking forwards to this chapter, so here you go! Enjoy and I look forwards to seeing what you think. _

Chapter Eleven: Interface

The lab was closer than the hydroponics bay, on the same side of the habitat ring as the converted fighter bays that held the living quarters. There was, again, a small, empty room between the corridor and the lab proper, Snape described it as an airlock, this time. He said, in an ominous voice, that the smoky shorts, gaseous accidents and explosions that accompanied a failed experiment required that the room have a separate atmosphere.

When the inner doors opened, Harry hung back, as much as he wanted to rush ahead thoughtlessly; the room was _complicated_. There were conduits running over all the walls, and both floor and ceiling, fermentation tanks stood in heavily built racks along the opposite wall, machines, lights and large pod-shaped containers utterly baffled Harry's picture of the room.

"This is so... _cool!"_ There was a snort in response and Snape steered him down the central walkway; a clear patch of deck where the conduits were sparse or covered over with black and yellow rubber to prevent feet from crushing them. To their right was a large set of racks, filled with obscure containers, packets and tubes that Harry half recognised as part of his required equipment for his Organic Electronics course. Also know as _cybernetics_! Needless to say, Harry was rather intrigued by the whole thing. The book for the course was incredibly dull, but Harry had hope for it yet. The racks extended into the room in an almost honey comb structure; obviously good in zero g, but he could see that parts of the system were inaccessible at the moment.

His attention was rapidly diverted, even as he was tipping his head to one side to try and read the label of a tube with a large, green hazard label on the side, by the fermentation tanks, gel-ferm units, like he had bought. Large, small, complex and deceptively simple; the racks held them all. Some were active, doing _something_ with their contents. The fluids inside glooped and bubbled and, in one case, fizzed, in a range of colours, from sea-foam green to a sickly, yellowish brown. The smell was... interesting; after the scrubbed clean air of the Thrace and the fishy smells of the 'ponics bay it was a serious contrast. Snape's hand drew him to a halt and he drew his attention back to his teacher.

They were standing in a roughly circular area of clear deck with a metal bench on one side, a rack of ingredients that had obviously been fetched from the stores on the other and machines Harry didn't know the name of.

"Stay there, I will explain in a moment." Snape ordered; it wasn't much of an imposition, there was much to look at. One of the large pods was nearby too, held horizontal on metallic struts bolted to the floor. Harry got a good look, but didn't move from his position, just in case he bumped into something dangerous. The outer shell was clear perspex or something like it, with ports and valves between its interior and a whole herd of conduits. Harry counted five, at least. The upper face, compared to gravity, was open like Hagrid's cockpit, once he'd lowered the dome and now that he looked, Harry could see a console on the inside, much like what Hagrid had had.

Snape returned then and Harry looked back to see that the man had fetched a large fermentation tank and was locking it to the work bench with the magnetic bolts on the 'bottom' of the unit. He watched and waited, expectantly.

"Given your rather... strong reaction to the Interface in Mr Ollivanders shop, I believe it best that you are gelled for the process." Snape said as he pulled out a stool to sit on; it was rather out of place and had probably been brought up from the habitat ring. Harry fidgeted nervously, they had 'talked' about that incident after dinner one evening; Snape had apologised again for speaking to him so carelessly and in anger but had made it explicitly clear that he expected Harry to think before he did _anything_, in future.

The lecture over, Harry had been asked to describe what he had been able to access. The man had been quiet after that; Harry hadn't been able to judge his reaction.

"Gelled?" He asked quietly, glancing at the pod.

"Indeed. We will spend the next hour fermenting a simple VC gel that will reduce the strain on your body and allow the Thrace to monitor your condition via the simulator," He gestured to the pod-shaped machine, "and relay information to the command station." He gestured to a half circle of screens and routing boards, a much more complex version of Dudley's game boards. In the centre was a chair, like the ones in the Norberta, that swiveled. The whole array was close enough to the pod, simulator, thing that Snape would be able to reach out and touch it, if he wanted to. That was a little comforting.

"Ok... I mean, yes, sir." He babbled, looking to the side, then down at the floor.

"Just remember what it felt like, that first time; you will be fine." Snape said; standing and giving Harry's shoulder a quick squeeze. Harry had had difficulty shutting up at how fantastic it had been, so he nodded and straightened his spine. "Now," announced Snape, turning back to the table, "I will give instructions, you will follow them, and there will be no mistakes. Understood?"

"Yes, sir!" He replied, hurrying to his side, by the rack of ingredients.

"We shall see." Snape said, with a raised eyebrow in his direction and a hard expression. "This is a gel-ferm Unit-1, larger and more versatile than the second in the series, though yours is more than sufficient for your lessons. Observe."

So Harry did. He watched Snape alter the temperature, light intensity and oxygen content inside the tank before setting them to twelve degrees above body temperature, ambient and atmospheric, respectively. The lid came off the tank easily then, and was set down on the bench; it too had magnetic bolts that held it in place, though they were unnecessary in gravity. Then the brewing could begin; the tank was hooked up to a conduit supplying clean water which snaked away to join a bundle of similarly blue-coded pipes emerging from a panel in the wall. In the same way, he had Harry hook it up to an additional power source, saying that the internal battery would last only so long.

Then Snape was giving him ingredient names, things he had never heard of: Korsakov's solution, Amytal agar, and they were carefully measured out, volumetrically. Harry realised that weighing them would be pointless; you would only be able to use that on-planet, since the illusion of gravity changed with the movements of the ship. Some of the substances they measured out were incredibly sticky or viscous, one behaved like jelly and one they had to grate off a purplish-black block. Harry watched a particularly gloopy, blue liquid as it oozed out of the measuring syringe and into the tank with fascination.

Time passed quickly enough; the lid went back on, the tank filled with the prescribed volume of water and Snape turned the tank's controls to manual and told Harry to stir and cool by two degrees every three minutes. The professor then settled in to be pestered with questions while he tuned the pod.

"What do you, um... see? Or feel, I mean, with the Interface?" Harry asked, glancing away from his task to where Snape was setting up,

"Many things. It depends greatly on the machines in the vicinity. My ship, the Thanatos, sends me telemetry. Times, speeds, distances, in a spatial format." Snape replied, leaving it to Harry to work out what that meant, or ask.

Harry imagined it like 'knowing' where the barriers had been in Ollivanders shop, and just nodded; it made sense. He set off another cycle of stirring and cooling, watching the chips of purple dissolve and turn pale yellow;

"I saw a lot... it was... wow. The Norberta was there, and you were really bright, sir." He said in a distracted, vague voice; buried in the recollection.

Snape raised an eyebrow at him, though he didn't see. The gel was turning pale green as the dissolving purple-turned-yellow mixed with the thick blue goop and Harry watched while he brought up the memories. Ollivander had been bright too, would his relatives have been? Was that a part of being a VCer, or just of being alive? And he'd heard the data tablet's doing _something_...

"Do I have to... um, listen to everything? All the time?" Harry asked, apprehensive and hunkering down on his stool.

"You grow accustomed to it. Some can be blocked out and some becomes as natural as seeing and hearing with your eyes and ears." Snape returned to the bench and the comforting hand on Harry's shoulder appeared again. They fell quiet, Harry deep in his thoughts and mesmerised by the swirling colours in the tank and Snape returned to programming in the gel type and Harry's profile to the simulator.

Eighteen minutes, six cycles of stirring and cooling, after the final ingredient had gone in, the display showed the desired readings and Snape stood;

"It is complete." He said, joining Harry at the bench.

Harry nodded and pulled his hands away from the bench so Snape could reach the controls. The gel was fully combined and even in colour. Harry swallowed and glanced at the gunmetal grey box containing his Interface.

"Out of the way, Mr Potter." Snape ordered quietly as he disengaged the magnets and hefted the large tank. It was a testament to his strength that he could lift it at all; the hexagonal tank was at least ninety centimetres tall, about the size of Snape's torso and full of the thick goop. He poured it unceremoniously into the pod, commenting;

"Where we in zero-g, I would insist on it being pumped and the pod closed but, that is unnecessary in this case." Harry peered into the pod wondering how one tank of gel was ever going to fill it but Snape hit enter on one of the keypads on the command station and water was pumped into the shell to join the gel. He watched incredulously as the gel grew in volume; not just mixing with the water but absorbing it somehow and growing to fill the space.

And then it was time.

Snape opened up the Interface's box then adjusted the setting on Harry's breather to 'S', so it could take an air feed from the pod's support machinery. As he connected it, the screens on the command station sprang to life and the pod began to hum, the internal screens lighting up and internal sensors coming online. Harry understood very little of this, all he saw was the pale green gel lighting up from the inside and screens full of incomprehensible numbers, many of them zeros, appear.

"Once you put it on, I am going to put you straight into the gel, understood? It will ease the strain on your body as you compensate for the new input." Snape told him seriously, placing the breather's mask over his face. Harry nodded in understanding and checked his mask, as Snape had encouraged him to, by giving it two gentle tugs. The seal was complete and he looked up at his teacher with big, green eyes.

"Ok, sir. I'm ready." He said, feeling very small; too small to fit into the man-sized simulator. Snape's piercing gaze held him for a second before he nodded and reached out to pick up the Interface, in its box.

"Very well. In your own time." He said as Harry picked the Interface up from the offered box and it greeted him with a warm yellow light and a hum. It was soothing, Harry thought, as he stroked the smooth, slightly warm shell. Snape put the box down again and Harry tipped his head forwards and brought the arms into contact with the back of his neck.

The effect was immediate; Harry drew in a deep gasp of cool air as the information flooded his senses. Colour, feel, shapes and movement, all confused and mixed up. He could feel his back arching at the overload and then he was caught up, weightlessly in Snape's grip. He could see through the chaos to a familiar pale face and black features but distracting from that was the knowledge that a great awareness loomed over them both, cocooning them in warmth and safety.

The gel buoyed his limbs up and soothed away the tension as he was lowered into its warm embrace. He shifted slightly and the gel gave way and, so assured that he wasn't trapped, he discounted the outside world and focused inwards.

_What?_

He asked, silently, of the great hulking presence that had turned its attention to him.

_Thrace, T-SG573. Home. _

An image appeared in front of him, the screen activating in response to the answer to his question; the Thrace, in all her retired glory, rotated slowly in an image of the sea bed. She was truly beautiful, enormous, hulking, yes, but magnificent. Her hull was arched, like the head of a shark and then becoming cylindrical gradually. The habitat ring encircled the centre of the hull, disappearing underneath it and into the sand and weed of the bottom.

_Yes. Safe. _

He replied, watching the image enlarge to show what he recognised as his room, then shift to show the Hydroponics bay with its glass roof.

_Ask. Vitals?_ Came the next enquiry, this time tagged with a code that Harry recognised as referring to the professor.

_Permission granted._ He replied, turning his head dazedly through the gel to look at Snape.

_Routed. _The Thrace's 'voice' was distinct, Harry realised; melodic and complex, while the message from Snape had been flat and empty in comparison, only the tag had made it recognisable.

_Quiet. Query? _Harry asked, his complicated question came down to just two words when he asked it of the Thrace; he wanted to know why everything had been so loud in Vertic, he'd heard many, many streams of data rushing by and the Norberta had been there, in the distance, along with a great many other ships of less consequence.

_Traffic. Many messages, much to overhear. Thanatos sleeping, Professor reducing wireless transmission. _

_Acknowledged._ Harry thought he understood, now. Vertic Alley was an incredibly busy, involved place. Here, in the middle of nowhere, there was little talking going on. The Thanatos was Snape's ship so of course he would ensure that it, he?, did not interfere.

_Query, light?_ He asked next, wondering why VCers stood out so clearly.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Snape skimmed over the pod's readout as it came though; the gel had already eased out the tension in Harry's limbs and his heart rate was settling back to normal. The little flicks and jitters of the boy's hands and limbs were normal as the internal screens on the simulator changed, scrolled and zoomed in response to Harry's commands.

He stood, once he was sure that Harry was experiencing no ill effects. He had been concerned, given the large capacity of Harry's Interface, but he seemed to be experiencing the normal range of data input. Thrace was beginning to take over the consoles; alarms that would tell him if anything changed appeared, a feed of what Harry was asking and the answers he was getting popped up. He stood over the control station, ready to move away and check the pod itself and watched the feed for a moment; Harry was asking about the Thrace's sensory systems:

_Query, see, how?_

The text came up, with a flash of images as part of the question; the view out of Harry's window and the see-through roof of the 'ponics bay, a schematic of the ship. He wondered where Harry had seen that, but not too hard; Harry studied well and promised to be a good student, on par with his mother. His chest tightened and he stared blankly at the flickering, rotating and zooming images that Harry was manipulating; Lily Potter would always be a source of pain for him and the loss of her friendship had been something it had taken him years to recover from, if he even had. True, he did not need to retreat into his lab every time he was reminded of her anymore, to hide and distract himself, but still... the gap remained; no one could compare to the robust vibrancy and strength she had been overflowing with.

Snape buried the flash of grief and turned to the simulator; now was not the time, her son was his priority now. The surface of the gel had sealed over properly, forming a thin skin that would stop the gel floating away in zero g. It was also the proper colour and viscosity, he noted as he pressed a hand against the surface. A flurry of commands at the control panel showed systems green. The internal sensors lit up the occupant eerily through the green substance; Harry looked almost monochrome as the greenish tinge washed out the colour in his skin and turned it white to his hair and clothes' black. Only his green eyes stood out as they flicked rapidly from screen to screen, Snape was surprised that he had two running and frowned slightly; VC was taxing in its own way and at this level, more screens meant more exhaustion. He couldn't see their display from where he was standing, so he returned to the command station and looked at his copy of the feeds.

Once he had, he slumped down in his chair and watched with a mixture of amusement and dismay; Harry had managed, in the two minutes it had taken him to run the simulator's checks, to make contact with the Norberta via the Thrace's comm. system. Hagrid's response was appropriate; surprise, curiosity and a quick call to Snape.

The man's face appeared on a new vid screen, joining the flock around the command station. "Professor? Yeh got 'Arry there?" He asked, obviously looking off at the feed from Harry. Snape's copy of it showed that they had exchanged a few lines of text already, basic greetings mostly.

"Afternoon, Hagrid. Yes, Mr Potter is Interfacing with the Thrace for the moment, in a simulator." He replied, sending Hagrid a few seconds of video of Harry in the pod using a quickly typed code and an Interface command. Harry smiled at the camera, to Snape's amusement, and sent another line of text straight from his mind to the comm. system.

_HarryPotter: Thanks, professor. See, Hagrid, I'm nowhere I shouldn't be! _

Snape frowned and glanced back up the logs, to try and see where the callsign had come from, but there was no indication that Harry had chosen it specifically. Usually a callsign started out as initials and a list of numbers, so the use of Harry's proper name was decidedly _un-_ usual. Hagrid's screen showed him busy with replying to the brat, so Snape queried the Thrace about it. An image of Harry's scar appeared, taken from the feed he had sent to Hagrid, along with an excerpt from the Poseidon Handbook;

_Callsigns. _

_Section 3, subsection b. Person's of significance, for the sake of convenience may use full and/or recognisable names in place of a traditional callsign. _

The next line was strangely ominous, to Snape's mind and his expression became grave.

_The Boy-Who-Lived. The Child of Stars. Hope. _

He deleted the entire string, angry at the Thrace for falling into the mindset that he had managed to keep Harry away from so far. His own infamy would be hard enough to handle aboard the Poseidon, even with just the students, if the AI's got into it as well, Harry would have nowhere to retreat to. A dialogue box popped up in the same screen that he had deleted his search string from;

_Thrace: Query, deletion?_ She asked, and Snape gave himself time to think by checking Harry's vitals and skimming through his conversation with Hagrid. He was at a loss as to how to explain to the ship; how do you convey a gut feeling, an inference based on experience and observation of a person, in code?

But then, he could have cursed at his own foolishness, the ships; Thrace, Poseidon, even the Hogwarts Express, would always place pilot welfare first, and that would include what they could perceive of Harry's situation. He just needed to make it a little easier... Minutes later and the request was off to the data relay to be sent out to all Poseidon Fleet ships, for AI 'eyes' only. Now, he would not be the only one looking to shield the boy from the expectation people would heap on his narrow shoulders.

_Thrace: Acknowledged. Command forwarded. _

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry grinned into his mask when Thrace told him that Hagrid could see him,

_HarryPotter: Thanks, professor. See, Hagrid, I'm nowhere I shouldn't be!_

His name had appeared as soon as they had started using text to send messages to Hagrid. He thought about the request Snape had sent for the information about his vitals and how it had been recognisably him, but he didn't think there had been a name tag like that; he was pretty sure it had been a code, instead.

"Aye, well, 'ow were I supposed ta know tha'?" Came the gruff reply, dispensing with typing out his answers. Harry had been a little aghast at how long it took the man to get out a few words, using a standard keyboard. There was the feeling of lots of chatter on the lines around Norberta, so Harry wasn't surprised that Hagrid wasn't just using his Interface, but all the same; he was glad Hagrid was talking instead.

_HarryPotter: I doesn't matter, I guess. How're you? Do you have anyone with you? _He asked. It had been three day's since Hagrid's last check in at the Thrace,

"Can' complain! The nice lass wi't cookies went ter t' Alley today, met 'em at t' Leaky. Bit o' trouble wit' her books, but nowt as can't be 'andled." Hagrid replied.

_HarryPotter: She's alright though? And... and her parents went too?_ He sent, glad that he wasn't using his voice, even though he hadn't been able to avoid the break in the words.

Hagrid's voice was sorrowful when he replied, "Aye, 'Arry. Her parents came' too." He paused and cleared his throat, Harry turned his face away from the vid screen and curled up slightly; the gel was comfortable and warm and right now, he wanted to hide.

"Dunnae think about it, 'Arry. Ye've got us, now." He finished gently, "Now, 's nigh on time fer tea, why don't you head on an get yerself fed."

"Kay, Hagrid," He muttered aloud, realising how tired he was beginning to get. To his own ears, his voice sounded thick and muffled by the gel, but Hagrid seemed to understand him; he did wonder how Hagrid sounded normal, though. "I'll see you soon?" He asked, feeling very small.

"Aye, lad, day af'er t'morrow. Sky speed, 'Arry."

"Sky speed." Harry replied and the vid screen blinked out of existence, replaced by a small 'connection terminated' sign. The screens he had had open before he'd heard the Norberta caught his attention again and got him to smile again, just a little bit; the Poseidon was very, very cool... The habitat ring was big, but the rest of the ship was _massive._ The picture was from the Thanatos, as Snape had pulled away from the fighter deck; the huge shields on the ships spineward side had pulled open and the enormous solar panels that they usually protected where open to the sun. Harry zoomed in on the hydroponics bay until the image's pixels where just visible and there was no point in going in any closer; it was like a jewel, sparkling in the sunlight. Scanning aft along the ships back, he found gun emplacements, huge antennae and transmission dishes, and every so often he would spot a porthole when the sun was reflecting off the glass. Or what he thought was glass, anyway.

He straightened back out from his curled up position and reached out to manipulate the screens manually, like a mudder would do. It was so _slow_ in comparison... but, he realised, it was taking much less energy, even though the gel dragged on his limbs and slowed his movements down. All the same, it gave him a reason for being tired now and he sent a quick message to Snape; he'd learned to just say something, Snape would just see it eventually, anyway.

Looking over, he couldn't see the professor straight away; for a moment he panicked, his limbs jerking, but Thrace quickly assured him that he wasn't alone, even as she set of an angry alarm to call Snape back from collecting towels. She showed him an internal feed of the man striding back, looking thunderous and worried all at once, with a stack of folded fabric under his arm.

_Sorry. I'm ok now._

_Acknowledged. However, constant supervision recommended._

Harry cringed a little; when she put it like that, it made him sound like a toddler. He did want Snape to come back though, and he recognised that he was being contrary in his own head. The man-shaped shadow near the pod reappeared and Harry tried to move towards the surface of the gel.


	12. The Game

_AN: Here you go! I'm currently working on drawing schematics of the various ships, orbital stations and cruisers involved in this story, so any questions you have, I'm glad to get. They help me work out the kinks._

* * *

><p>Chapter Twelve: The Game<p>

Snape flipped the thick towel out and laid it on the workbench for now, muttering to the Thrace as he did so;

"Understood, you damn ship. I get the message." He raised his voice slightly, "Disengage alarm," and sent the authorization code through his Interface. He grumbled that the Thrace had even requested it but, he conceded, he should have warned the boy.

He returned to the pod and broke the skin on the gel to grip Harry's wrist, with which he was reaching towards the surface with difficulty. Once Harry's hand had fastened around his wrist in return, he tapped a command into the pod's controls with his free hand and the whole thing _buzzed_. The gel inside liquefied and Harry was drawn to the surface by his grip on Snape's wrist. He moved quickly to prevent the boy from sinking again and plunged his free arm into the softened gel and around Harry's shoulders.

"Mr Potter, my hand, if you will." He said with a raised eyebrow. Harry quickly released his wrist, looking slightly disorientated by the sudden movement. With his freed hand, Snape removed the breather from the internal face of the pod and disengaged Harry's mask. Gel would drip everywhere, he realised with a grimace, clean up would have to wait until the morning, however.

"Ready, Mr Potter?" He asked, shuffling him so he could lift him bodily out of the pod.

"Yes, sir." He replied, gathering his breather up in one hand and holding onto Snape with the other.

Snape nodded in reply and hauled the boy out of the gel completely. After a moment to let the substance run off his clothes and skin he turned to sit him on workbench. The breather ended up on the metal table and he pulled the heavy fabric up, around Harry's shoulders.

"'s cold out here, sir." He said, just his head showing from the towel. He was blinking slowly in the way Snape had come to recognise as indicating mental fatigue; Harry often did it after spending the afternoon reading textbooks on his tablet. The gel had slicked down his nest of hair and he barely moved once Snape had him wrapped up. He very gently tipped Harry's head forwards so that his brow, and that infamous star-burst scar, rested against his chest. A gentle brush of fingers shifted sticky hair off the Interface and bared Harry's nape. He, with great care, slid his fingers around the object and it obligingly disengaged. The soft yellow glow that it emitted, so unlike the midnight blue that Severus' gave off, faded away and Harry slumped bonelessly against his chest. He wrapped an arm around the boys back to keep him upright and used a corner of towel to wipe away the gel that had been under the device.

"Indeed. The pod is temperature controlled," He said softly as he reached to initiate the cleaning cycle; the gel was vented out and water jets squirted the sides clean. Harry would not need it very much more; the stress his small frame would feel would be much less, the next time he tried his Interface. But perhaps to be safe... Severus' mind spun with both medical and technical calculations as his hand flickered over the controls. That started, he turned back to Harry and picked him up with just as much ease as he had two weeks previously; the boy had a long way to go.

"That was amazing..." The child murmured into Snape's conduction shirt, he 'hmm'ed in reply and set off back towards their living quarters and the shower. "Thrace is nice," Apparently 'sleepy' was no barrier to talk, in this case. He sighed quietly; at least the exercise had gone well, all told.

"She is a good ship," He replied. His long legged stride had taken them to the modified fighter deck already; he headed straight to the bathroom at the far end. Harry was, for want of a better word, snuggling against his shoulder and he was glad that he had had the foresight to take off his uniform jacket. The gel clung to his conduction shirt as it was designed to but was not uncomfortable; Harry's hair seemed able to hold an inordinate amount of the substance.

The bathroom door opened automatically as he approached and he sent a quick command to the Thrace to run the hot water; Harry did have trouble keeping warm when tired and it would be best to mitigate that immediately. Snape paused as he set the boy down on the counter next to the sink; it was strange, how easily he had adapted to the child's frailty... Harry's own stoic nature was an aid, no doubt; he did not complain about being tired or reject the help Snape gave. He did not ask for aid automatically either, and gave him long, grateful looks when he got it; Snape could never escape the reminder that this, as hard as it was on Harry and as tired as he was after the mornings hydrotherapy, was _still better_ than what the Dursleys had demanded of him.

Harry had a remarkably mature approach to life, which made his moments of childish glee, something Snape had never found endearing, a thing of great significance. Each time Snape found him reading the news feed first thing in the morning or came across him taking the chalky all-round-unpleasant pills he'd prescribed him the look on his face was... old. Knowing. Snape could think of no other words for it.

Steam started billowing out of the shower as the cubicle filled with the stuff and Snape peeled back the sodden towel from his charge. The dazed look on Harry's face had faded towards a deep contemplation and Snape had to look away before his mind labelled the eleven year old boy in front of him an adult. He tried to clear his head with a deep breath and lifted the boys chin to try and get his attention;

"Mr Potter? Status report." He barked, causing the boy's eyes to snap to focus and his spine to straighten.

"Yes sir! Um, I'm a bit dizzy, sir, sorry... but I think I can stand, at least to have a shower." Came the surprisingly cogent reply. Snape gave an approving nod and lifted the little figure off the counter. Harry's knees buckled briefly when his feet first touched the ground but Snape just held still and he righted himself soon enough. His pale little hands gripped Snape's forearms for a moment before gradually easing away as his confidence returned.

"Very well, do not hesitate to call out." He said, conjuring the stern expression that he commonly used on older cadets, sure in the knowledge that they understood the consequences it promised. The boy nodded and quirked a faint, one sided grin;

"Thanks, sir. I reckon I'll need it at some point." Snape's chest constricted with conflicting emotions; firstly, how candid a patient! Free of the childish rebellion and protestations of 'I'm fine!', such a contrast with the bullish, foolhardy behaviour of most young men he had ever treated. Secondly, that faint expression of gratitude, so sad and _knowing_; yet another flag of years of the accursed _Dursleys_ that made his blood boil.

He gave the boys shoulder a squeeze and took a step back, allowing him to move freely in the space. He retained his eagle eye on the frail little body's movements but did not interfere; Harry stepped into the shower, conduction shirt and all and turned his face to the hot water with obvious pleasure. Reassured by this, Snape turned his back to the wall beside the cubby containing the shower and slid down it to sit, legs askew, on the floor. The sound of wet fabric hitting the shower floor emerged and he relaxed further, though still attentive to the sounds of the shower.

"You where looking at the Thrace's plans, correct?" He enquired out of curiosity,

"M-hm. Oh! I mean, yes sir. She was very obliging." Harry replied, slightly muffled by water, "I was impressed, sir, especially by her turning circle."

"Indeed, half a ship length when stationary, I believe?" He prompted, trying to wheedle out of the boy what he had spent half an hour doing through the screens in the pod and his Interface.

"Yeah, you'd still have momentum in the same direction as you'd been travelling in, if you were moving, though. She said that was important for braking, sir, why's that?" Harry asked, slurring only slightly and almost speaking to himself until the final, direct question.

"Purely convenience; it enables the primary engines to be used for deceleration, and causes the crew to experience g in primarily one direction, barring manoeuvres." He restrained from mentioning that fighters used the technique to train their guns on following enemies; Harry's heritage would push him far enough in that direction without his encouragement. They spoke, with lengthening intervals between sentences, about the thrust system and the various cameras and sensors Harry had looked at. Snape was rather amused by his fascination with the ocean-bottom landscape around them.

They did not go on to talk about the Poseidon, but Snape could tell there was something Harry wished to ask, or say. He let the silence draw on;

"Sir?" Harry said, pulling a towel into the stall to bundle himself up in. Snape was rather pleased that he had not had to intervene, up until this point at least.

"Yes Mr Potter?" He replied, pulling himself to his feet and throwing the cloth he had used to clean the gel of his arms and chest onto the pile with the towel he had initially wrapped Harry up in.

"Being gelled..." Snape didn't interrupt, even as Harry's pause grew too long, he just picked up a second towel and began drying the boy's hair, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. "It was nice, sir..." There was a heavy note of sadness that Snape could not identify in his voice, so he remained quiet for now

"Like a hug. I didn't know what hugs were like until Hagrid." He finished, bowing his head. "And... and I could feel so much..." There was a brief wobble in the boys' posture so Snape pressed gently on his back so he was leaning against his torso. Time for rest, he thought; the shock on Harry's system was greater than normal and his body less able to cope to begin with.

"You have done very well, Mr Potter, in the face of adversity. It is time for you to rest." He said; while he found it difficult to address Harry's comment about physical contact, but he would at least be able to sit with him until he fell asleep.

"Yes, sir... m' pretty sleepy..."the boy replied, causing that tiny upturn of the mouth that passed for a smile in Snape's book. He half-knelt and hefted the boy up against his side, keeping him bundled up in the over-large towel.

"Indeed, you may sleep for twenty minutes or so, and I will wake you for dinner." He said as he left the bathroom and returned to Harry's door.

"I can help, if you want..." Harry mumbled with a very small voice, harking back to their conversation of the day before.

"That will not be necessary, but I appreciate the offer." He said, with a mixture of seriousness and amusement.

"Kay..." The trail-off at the end of Harry's sentences was getting longer and Snape sighed; he would be asleep before he could put his pyjamas on. He would have to bundle the boy in one of his large shirts again; the only thing he could dress him in with his eyes closed and the boy mostly asleep. He would respect his privacy, even if Harry was unaware that it was important yet.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Dinner turned out to be rice again; Harry was beginning to think that it was some kind of sick-person super-food, it never left him feeling nauseous or over full, even when he was expecting it to from prior experience. The sauce was good, too, and he sleepily munched his way through his bowl without further thought, it was meaty, rather than fishy for once, but he wasn't going to complain. Snape was doing the same, from a plate, since he wasn't stuck in bed. He'd set his tray on a barrier he'd set at table height and put Hedwig's bowl of rehydrated dried mango and raw shrimp on Harry's bedside table. The crunching sounds were much less disturbing than they had been two weeks before, but still, they were pretty gross. Harry knew she preferred shelled food, nuts included, but the _noise..._

His nap had perked him up fairly well, but he still agreed with Snape that he should stay in bed... The lap around the pool that morning had been no less strenuous than usual and then he'd tried his Interface as _well_, so it felt good to be curled up, around a warm bowl of nice food, as he steadily filled his stomach.

"Can I try that again, tomorrow?" He asked, blinking across at Snape, who looked up from his food and lowered his cutlery.

"Yes, I believe that will be prudent." The Interface box was sitting on his trunk and Harry glanced at it longingly. "Once more gelled, then we shall see about Interfacing un-aided." Harry nodded; he had no objections to going back in the pod, for as many times as he needed to.

"It was nice to hear about what Hagrid's been up to." He mumbled, picturing the man's beetle-black eyes poking out from his facial hair.

Snape 'hmm'ed in response, returning to his food; "Indeed, and news of your future year-mate."

Harry felt like Snape was fishing for something but didn't know what. "Yeah, I hope they're, y'know, nice... Um, Dudley always... yeah, I didn't like making friends; they'd always get picked on." He said, sticking some rice grains to his finger and giving them to Hedwig. Snape raised an eyebrow at this, but didn't comment.

"You must trust your crew with your life, Harry, we do not permit internal conflict." Snape said. Harry thought he might be trying to reassure him, but it was hard to tell. It seemed like Snape wasn't fishing anymore, either; that hanging tone had left his voice. He wondered briefly about it, but decided not to ask.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The mornings swimming had gone very well, with Snape throwing in some breather-less exercises to improve his lung capacity. Harry had been enthusiastic and the improvement since his arrival on the Thrace was obvious; he moved easily through the water now, with grace. He had copied, for the most part, Snape and Hedwig as they moved through the water so he used a slightly unusual combination of coordinated kicking and breast-stroke arms that worked well for his slight physique.

They had caught a large salmon, between the two of them and a net, some of which they had for lunch, and the remainder they froze. Harry had been most impressed by the large, strong animal and had thanked it for being eaten, causing Snape to give him a very funny look and comment;

"No wonder you got on with Aaron," He'd said as he de-scaled the creature in preparation for taking the muscle off the bones. Harry had looked up bemusedly from the greener-than-green juice he was making from a grape-like fruit but then, receiving no clarification, had returned to his task.

Harry was still drinking the aforementioned juice, from a squeezy sports bottle, when they were on their way to Snape's lab after the meal.

"Professor?" he asked as he stared out of a large window to the outside, seeing the curved surface of the habitat ring stretch over the skin of the Thrace,

"Yes, Mr Potter?" the man replied a little absently, working on something on his tablet as they walked.

"Are there lots of people who'll be like the people at the Bank?" he said pulling his eyes away from the porthole and looking down at his hands. He heard Snape sigh and put his tablet away;

"I will not lie to you, Harry; there will be whispers, and looks, especially among the pupils, but even among the staff." He said with a grave voice, "I cannot guarantee that it will be easy, or fair."

"Oh, I guess that's..." Harry mumbled at the floor, trailing his teacher mournfully.

"But I will say one thing; there will always be somewhere for you to go, if you need some peace." Snape said somewhat cryptically, his voice sounding a little far off. Harry glanced up curiously and found that Snape was looking at something very far away, through the bulkhead and there was an old sadness there too that he couldn't quite understand. After a moment, the strangeness was broken by a brisk shake of the professor's head and the return of his ever present stern expression. "My office is always open to you, Harry."

Harry nodded, a warm feeling in his chest, and they were off again at a brisk pace, and reached the lab without further comment. The room, complete with its mess of trailing cables and conduits was the same as it had been when they left it the day before, though some of the gel units on the racks had changed colour over night. The pod was clean but there was a trail of dried gel drips from the edge of the Perspex to the bench and Harry's breather was still covered in the stuff too.

"Do not look so concerned, Harry, it comes off easily enough." Snape said as they reached the clear, circular space that bordered the pod-shaped simulator. The rack of ingredients they had used before was still there and Snape took out a package of solvent-soaked cleaning cloths. Handing one to Harry, he used his to wipe up the gel on the side of the pod. Harry went for his breather, as a priority piece of equipment and soon had the gel off it and had moved on to the bench.

Once they had cleaned, Snape looked at Harry appraisingly for a long moment before nodding and moving without comment to set up the tank. He explained what he was doing as he began extracting ingredients from the rack, and Harry soaked up the information with a serious little frown of understanding.

"We will be using a lower concentration of Amytal, I believe its muscle relaxant properties will be in lesser demand, as you are somewhat accustomed to this process now." And so on. He lost Harry soon enough, but he thought that Snape wasn't really talking to him, anyway; his muttered tone implied that he was merely thinking aloud for Harry's benefit. The fermentation process was much the same, however, and Harry made the necessary adjustments to the stirring and temperature.

When it was time, Harry stripped out of his uniform and shoes, leaving him in a conduction shirt and swimming trunks. He felt eager, with none of the nerves he'd had that time the day before; he wanted to talk to Thrace, to _see_ in that way that he had no words for yet. He had his breather on and set by the time Snape had poured the gel into the pod; as the water rushed in, the bluish-green gel expanded as it had the day before. After receiving a nod in confirmation, Harry reached for the Interface and plucked it out of the padded box.

"Should I...?" He asked, looking up at Snape again and raising the device slightly,

"Indeed. Come stand with me, and attempt to restrain your initial response." Snape replied silkily, tapping a final command into the control console and turning to face Harry. "Try to resist the urge to vanish into the data; concentrate of the external world."

"I think I can do that, sir..." He swallowed, tentatively putting a steadying hand on Snape's arm and tilting his head forwards so he could bring the Interface's contacts to the back of his neck.

As before, the flood of information was immediate, jolting him and making his spine arch into the Interface. He managed to avoid falling over and he could still see, a bit, in the normal spectrum, so he assumed that he had indeed made some progress but already the muscles of his back burned and his breath came in short pants. Snape's strong hands had him up and in his arms after a few seconds, just long enough for him to get a feel for what his response was and try to relax, a little ineffectually.

The soothing gel felt fantastic as it closed over him and he could feel its effects on his body very quickly. He deliberately went limp, with its help, and blinked at the dark, gel distorted shape above him. Snape was just fixing his breather into the feeds on the inside of the pod and Thrace was looming over them both, waiting for her turn.

Once Snape's arms were gone, the surface smoothed out almost unnaturally quickly and the distortion lessened. Harry watched calmly, trying to stay on this side, in the physical reality, for a little longer before getting immersed in the data banks. The dark shape that was Snape moved away and Harry turned his head to the right to follow his movements; he saw him pick something up from the command console, the arc of vidscreens and keyboards around a large, bolted down, g chair. A moment later Snape's voice reached him through the gel, relatively undistorted.

"Status report, Mr Potter." He was saying as he sat down at the command console and began activating screens and feeds.

"I'm ok," Harry replied, only a little breathless. He had to make a conscious effort to speak out loud; it seemed less natural than just sending the words through the Interface. That, in and of itself, was strange to Harry, but he tried not to dwell on it. "The gel helps."

"Very well, Mr Potter. You have three minutes to settle, feel free to continue your research from yesterday." Snape replied through his headset.

Harry acknowledged that non-verbally; he didn't realise what he had done but what Snape received was a quiet two tone sound and a green glow on the edge of the feed he had set up to show what Harry was up to. The teacher made no comment, either, so Harry slipped into talking with the Thrace.

She, it, was pleased with him, for some reason and he was soon delving into her systems and marvelling at their complexity. The communications network caught his attention on his way 'past' and he, politely, asked for an explanation of the brilliantly coloured web that presented itself straight to his brain.

Thick, navy blue lines, looking like thick streams of glowing... something, connected Snape to Thrace and Thanatos, intricate networks of copper raced from system to system within the great hulk that was his home now, with smaller feeds of red, green and yellow stretching from points on her external surface to join up with the network. Thanatos was a dark, bluish purple, collecting information from Thrace's main spine, the literal backbone of the ship that held the largest of the data streams, and disseminating lines all over his hull and guts. The most spectacular of them all was what Thrace had labelled the Communication Trunk, a thick, intense stream of many colours that began at the largest node in the Thrace's system and vanished into the distance.

The strangest thing, Harry found, was that he didn't know how he knew the navy blue corresponded to Snape, or the purple to his ship, though he probably could have worked it out if he had thought about it for a moment. But the point was that he hadn't _needed_ to; the information had just appeared, seamlessly in his mind as he looked out over the immense, circuit board-like map. He soon closed his eyes and the image was even clearer against the darkness inside his eyelids.

The large, central node of Thrace's system glowed brilliantly, showing just how much information was held there. He tried to look at it closer but the resolution refused to increase; after a moment a red box containing the words 'access denied' flashed up and he heard Snape's voice again. He opened his eyes and closed the map, as if it was a screen. The lines vanished and he glanced back out at the physical world.

"That's enough, Harry. Access to the system like that is generally restricted to fourth years." Snape admonished and Harry was reminded that he had been given a time limit. A quick request showed that he had over run, Thrace provided him with a counter that was already in the negative by seventy three seconds.

_HarryPotter: Sorry sir, I didn't mean to take so long._ He said, the sentence popping up on the feed Snape was monitoring.

"Accepted, Mr Potter, your research was appropriate." Snape said, transferring something from his personal data pad to the command console. Harry could hear the data streaming across and was sure that, if he could still see it, there would be a line of light on the map to indicate the exchange, the connection.

"This, Mr Potter, is a training program," Snape said as he typed in a line of code, "designed to improve precision and reaction times in VCers."

Harry turned his attention to the screens on the inside of the pod. He hadn't used them yet that day so he activated one and the program appeared when Snape was done typing and hit enter.

_HarryPotter: Received, sir. What do you want me to do? _

The screen was expanding, even as he sent the message, spreading a black backdrop across most of the upper half of the pod. By the time it stopped, the black, star studded image stretched from above his head to just below his knees and filled his vision sideways. If he cocked his head, just so, he could look out past it and see Snape's boots.

"The objective is to tag the beacons, using as few shots as possible, in as little time as you are able." Snape said. The items in question blinked into existence on the screen as he mentioned them; beacons were large, crystalline objects with red lights blinking from one end and a loud transponder signal. Thrace popped up a description of a tagging gun too; an explosive depressurization powered barrel that propelled electronic tags at speed, allowing an AI to track an object accurately.

"On my mark, in three," as the slow countdown commenced, the sample beacon disappeared "two," and Harry hurriedly skimmed the targeting window for how to operate the thing, fortunately, it was very simple;

"one," he closed the instructions with a hurried mental command and turned back to the simulator's main screen; the image of the Black, scattered with stars, began to move as if he was travelling slowly and an instrument panel, full of readouts he did not understand, appeared in an arc on a new screen that curved around at hand height.

"Mark!" a beacon appeared, drifting slowly from right to left across simulated space, while Harry's 'ship' moved steadily forwards. He bit his lip under his mask and focused on the slowly moving target,

"En- um, engage reti-... um professor, how do you pronounce that?" Harry asked, nervously aware that there was a timer in the corner of the screen.

"Reticule, Potter. Keep your head, and take your time." said Snape on the tails of a heavy sigh.

"Yes Sir! Engage reticule; ready tube one." Harry said with deliberate confidence. A blue aiming box appeared on the image, and the sounds of metal against metal played into the simulator. Harry jumped in surprise but focused again when he realised that the noise was from loading the tag.

He took a deep breath and let it out slowly as he concentrated on the moving beacon, causing the reticule to jump to it. For a moment the little box jumped, fixing on the target, then being left behind but Harry frowned and focused on matching the speeds and the target and reticule started to become synchronised.

"Fire." He commanded, saying it out loud out of nerves and sending it digitally through the Interface at the same time. There was a pop and a line of blue light showed the path of the tag, quickly just a speck of light against the black. It took all of a second to reach the target, by which time the beacon had moved out of the way; the tag sailed into the far distance and blinked out.

"Again, Mr Potter, use the second barrel." Snape ordered,

"Yes, sir. Ready tube two, um..."

"Reload, Harry."

"Right... _reload_ tube one," Harry said, and a quiet, thrumming whir started up as the virtual barrel reset and a new tag loaded. This time, when he aimed, he tried to compensate for how far it would travel in the time it took the tag to get there;

"Fire, tube two." The tag hit the beacon with a 'bing' as the computer logged a successful strike, but it didn't take; the clip sent the crystalline beacon spinning off at an angle and Harry lost it off screen. "Reload, tube two," he commanded and the barrel was reset, but he ignored it as the next target drifted into view; blue this time.

He concentrated, trying to imagine where it would be in a few moments, tracking it with his eyes, then pushing the reticule further ahead and...

"Fire!"

The tag hit and flared bright blue as it stuck, the beacon jerked at the impact but the little electronic tag was firmly attached. A surge of satisfaction gave Harry an enormous, satisfied grin as he scored the point. He had only a moment to celebrate before the next beacon appeared and he was setting up the next shot.


	13. The Express

_AN: Enter the Hogwarts Express. Enjoy and I'll see you on the reviews page. _

* * *

><p>Chapter Thirteen: The Hogwarts Express<p>

Harry emerged from the pod tired and triumphant; the game most thoroughly Well Played. He had lost count of how many beacons he had hit and how many had got away, but he had soon been using both barrels simultaneously, aiming one while the other was reloading. He grinned up at his professor as he hauled him out of the gel and he was deposited on the bench again. The shots had gotten harder and harder as the game had gone on and the sense of achievement was intense.

"Thanks, professor; that was brilliant!" He exclaimed, significantly more energetic than he had been the day before. He pulled the towel around his shoulders and squeezed the gel out of his hair as Snape set the pod to clean itself.

"Indeed, Mr Potter, congratulations." The man said wryly as he typed commands. Truly, he was rather pleased with the boy's performance; though not outside the bounds of normality, it was high on the scale, and it showed that his reflexes had not been affected by the malnutrition he had suffered, or that, if they had, Harry would be truly someone to watch once he'd gotten over it. He glanced side on at the child in question, who was wiping his face free of gel with the corner of a towel; though much improved, he remained weakened and now Snape was demanding more of him, eating into what Snape had privately called 'nap time'. But, it would seem that Harry would not require putting to bed this time; his colour was good and his movements slow but not sluggish. Perhaps they would be able to clean before heading back, Snape thought, going for a cleaning cloth as Harry prevented his toes from dripping gunk onto the floor.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Hagrid joined them for dinner that night, his large body folding almost impossibly to get into the Mess' chairs. He'd brought with him three large portions of steak which Harry was staring at with trepidation; Vernon Dursley had liked his steak very rare and it had often bled on the plate, which he was then expected to clean up. However, when Snape took them off the griddle, they were a deeper brown than that and he poured some brown sauce thing over it that smelled like pepper. It was at this point that Harry's mouth started watering.

There was salad too, and Harry munched on carrot sticks and tomatoes, once he had devoured the main dish, following Hagrid's example and eating them with his fingers, with judicious use of his napkin. Hagrid was even gesturing with a carrot, at one point, and though Snape looked nonplussed at this it was unclear whether it was the food-waving or the talk of porbeagle sharks.

Harry did find out that Hagrid was nearly finished with rounding up the planet-born, and he realised that there was only a week and a half left until they would all up and leave for the Poseidon. He couldn't say that he wasn't nervous, it was going into _space_ though, and that made up for a lot. And Snape would be there...

And then there would be manoeuvres and Harry would probably pass out and everyone would see and people would know his name before he introduced himself and they would point at his scar and, and...

"Harry Potter, stop that at once!" Snape's sharp voice cut through the haze and Harry took a deep breath, looking up at the man with enormous eyes. He was closer than he had been before and Harry realised that the professor was kneeling in front of him, his chair having been turned on its axis.

"'Ere now, 'Arry, wha's matter?" Hagrid was leaning in close on his other side, his plate sized right hand on Harry's back.

"Um, sorry, I, ah... right, sorry." He stuttered, huffing wryly at his own behaviour. "I just, I'm nervous..." He admitted to his knees.

There was an almost silent sigh from Snape and Harry looked up with a worried half smile, "I mean, I know it'll be alright but... it's going to be so different! I mean... space! And people who've known my name longer than I have..."

"And myself, and Hagrid and Hedwig. You will not be alone," Snape's hands gripped his shoulders and squeezed. Harry nodded and rubbed his hands over his face, in an attempt to buck himself up.

"You're right, I know, I'm sorry." He said at his knees, glad he hadn't tipped over the edge into a fully fledged panic attack.

"Cease apologising, Potter, one might start to imagine you have done something wrong." Snape said in his usual tone as he stood and backed off. Harry managed a grin, shaky as it may have been and was nearly catapulted off his chair when Hagrid patted him on the back.

"There ya go, now. Nowt tah be afraid 'a!" He exclaimed while Harry surreptitiously rolled his shoulders.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry fidgeted and shuffled his feet nervously, looking up at the Thanatos' hull. He knew he'd met him before, Snape had brought him to the Thrace in the large fighter, but he had not only been asleep, he hadn't been wearing his Interface then, either. Add that to the fact that it was the last day of August and they were headed to the spaceport and Harry was very jittery indeed.

It had taken him what was left of the summer holidays, a little more than a week, to grow accustomed to his Interface enough that Snape would let him wear it all the time, and it had been quite the revelation; the enormous influx he had experienced the first few times was still there, but Harry could shut it out, stop it from reaching his head. It was stored temporarily in the Interface instead, where the information would decay if he didn't access it. Snape had said that he could store the more useful stuff on his tablet, permanently if he wanted, so that had been his homework for the past four days, talking to the Thrace and requesting interesting files.

That had taken him time to get the hang of; for a while all the images he had transferred had been corrupt because he had been distracted and something had gotten missed and then he'd started losing text because he was focused on graphics. It had been incredibly frustrating. Snape had drilled 'concentration, clarity and constancy' into his head until he had got the hang of it, and get it he had. He checked the tablet under his arm for the fifth time that morning and yes, the notes he had taken were still there and _yes_ the image of the Thrace's communications network was intact.

He put the little computer back in stand-by and fidgeted some more; his trunk had been packed the night before and he had checked it over before he went to bed and Snape had ordered him to do it again that morning, but he was still somewhat anxious that he had left something behind. Hedwig, perched lightly on his shoulder, gripping the special epaulette Madam Malkin had added, showed no such agitation; she was bouncing happily, tail waving in the air behind his head. All she needed to be content was the dried fish and pieces of melon he had in his bag.

He had been partly reassured, and partly irritated, to hear that she wouldn't be bothered by faster than light travel _or_ zero-g conditions; it was in her blood, somehow. He had hoped that they would learn together, but never mind. He just hoped he didn't make a complete arse of himself aboard the Hogwarts Express.

He had a little confidence that he would be ok in lessons, at least... Snape had said that plenty of sky-born never even opened their texts before they got to Poseidon, _and _had begrudgingly complimented him on his performance in the simulator. Harry had used it eight times in total, while he was getting used to his Interface and it had been immense fun. Having never played on a games console of any kind, it was a revelation and Snape's insistence on calling them 'exercises' hadn't diminished his enthusiasm at all. The one dampener was that he would occasionally be reminded of his cousin, and he was sure it showed on his face because Snape would become solemn and serious and the difficulty level would increase, an apt distraction.

"Cease your gawping, Mr Potter, and follow!" Professor Snape said, coming out from behind the Thanatos' shadowed belly. The lights in the fighter deck were off as the Thrace had been mostly powered down, leaving only the attenuated light of the sun reflecting off the sea bed to light the large space. It shifted and slid across the Thanatos' hull like oil as the barrier holding back the sea rippled.

Snape was wearing dress uniform today, so he would be recognised by new students and parents, and it was... impressive. The Poseidon emblem was stitched on each shoulder and his insignia was pinned to the fabric, next to his mark of rank on the right side of his chest. The jacket itself was he inky black of space and had a high collar, unlike his every day jacket and Harry's uniform, which had lapels. It reached down to his knees, Harry noted as the man turned sharply to climb the ladder to Thanatos' cockpit, and was split up the back, to the level of his waist; it swished dramatically. The fabric itself was so dark; it made Snape's pale, Sky-born skin look like marble, or snow.

Harry tucked his tablet back in his bag, checked that Hedwig was clinging on tightly and started up the ladder, a glorified set of recesses in the ship's hull, extended down to the deck by a short stretch of rungs. Thanatos was bigger than Norberta and loomed in the sultry light; with deeper wings and a larger fuselage, due in part to the addition of a hold, currently full of medical supplies. His propulsion drives were proportionally more impressive; Harry climbed past one as he reached the top of the ladder and it was easily as big as his top half. He climbed up onto the surface of the wing and could just see the back of his Professors head where he was leaning over the back of the co-pilots seat, doing ..._something_ esoteric with a barrier emitter.

Harry swallowed nervously, hoping that arriving with a teacher wouldn't single him out _too_ much, at least not any more than being the Boy-Who-Lived would... His nerves dissolved into a scowl as he remembered the people at Gringott's, the Swiss bank, and their irritating, frightening behaviour.

He was jerked out of his thoughts when the floor disappeared from under his feet; Snape had picked him up as if he weighed nothing. He gripped the teachers' arms as he was lifted over the rim of the cockpit and lowered into the dark and complicated interior. The co-pilot's seat was larger than Harry by a significant amount and his head truly had no hope of reaching the headrest. His legs stuck out forwards because his knees didn't reach the edge of the seat but he was paying little attention to these little details; he had a view of the instrument panel and was drinking in the glowing lights, numbers and screens that littered the surface. Most of them he had not a clue about; graphs, figures, strange codes and esoteric symbols that he didn't even recognise, let alone understand. The only thing that looked even vaguely familiar was the three dimensional readout of sensor readings and even that looked foreign and different from what he had encountered in the simulator.

"Strap in, Potter. The lemur too." Snape ordered as he sat himself in the pilots chair and began running checks and booting up the control system. His uniform jacket was gone, presumably somewhere in the back of the ship and his second skin of conduction shirt shone in the lights of the instruments.

Harry was quick to obey, the blue barrier of the restrainer going over his chest and hips. A second, more flexible and less elastic harness was obviously for Hedwig and he put her inside. She immediately clung to his jacket front, arranging her tail to dangle out of the harness and tucking her head against his chest. The harness pulled her little body close to his chest; she made a comforting warm patch even through his uniform and he stroked her back gratefully. She was looking sleepy already, like she did when Harry wrapped her up in a towel after swimming. "Ready, sir."

"Very well, take off in ten." Replied the pilot-come-Professor, his hands flickering over the controls and touch sensitive screens. The Thanatos began to purr as his engines warmed up, Harry's fingertips buzzed with the sensation, and the cockpit roof slid up over them in a silent ripple. The blue glow coming off the propulsion drives lit up the fighter deck as they began rumbling forwards, gaining speed.

"Contact with water in three... two..." Snape was saying and Harry glanced nervously at the professor; the implacable calm was reassuring so Harry pressed himself back in his seat, wriggling his bum a little to get comfortable, and gripped the edge of his seat firmly. The barrier between air and water rippled as it got nearer and nearer until Harry could see the little fishes darting away from the now shivering surface.

"One."

Thanatos' nose broke the barrier and they sliced into the water. The ship jerked as the wings caught in the thicker substance and begun to generate lift; they shot out into the ocean, canted upwards towards the glittering, rolling surface. Bubbles streamed behind the wing tips as the last of the air was left behind and the propulsion drives' changed from a purr to a full on growl. Harry laughed delightedly as it grew brighter and brighter, the sun starting to warm the back of his hands, and then they were airborne; in a great spray of seawater, the Thanatos leaped from the ocean and into the sky.

The sunlight was brilliant; warm and sparkling on the hull as streams of water were flicked off by the wind. There was a jerk as the Thanatos' nose dipped and the air caught under his wings followed by a roar as the 'drives caught in the new medium and drove them forwards.

Harry's face felt sore from the impossibly large grin spread all over it, but, looking out over a glittering, shifting sea and towards London, he couldn't suppress it.

"Air traffic control, this is Tango Hotel Sierra Six Niner Four, come in." Snape said quietly but with clear, clipped syllables. There was a click, followed by an unfamiliar voice _smarming_ its way through the comms channel;

"Copy, Tango, Hotel, Sierra. This is District one, Central; how can I help you, sir?"

Harry glanced at Snape; he didn't think that slimy tone would go down well with the man, and he was right; his reply was curt and biting.

"You can help me by doing your _job_. Requesting confirmation of flight path to lift dock niner point seven five, Transport code Hotel Echo Five, Seven, Niner, Two." Snape snapped into his microphone, making Harry sink down in his chair and try to hide his amused grin; he could _swear_ the professor was enjoying himself. The stuttering reply was made legible only by the rigid structure of radio codes and Snape did, indeed, look smug.

They banked, turning their trajectory further northwards so the sun was to their right, in the east. It was low thanks to the early hour but Harry still enjoyed the warmth and the light picked out the oncoming coastline in clear relief. There were beaches, roads, towns, boats... a great deal to see, but Harry couldn't help but be drawn to the instrument panel instead. His Interface was mostly powered down and he wasn't supposed to be doing anything with it so the dials, graphs and readouts were the next best thing to contacting Thanatos directly. The Altitude graph he managed to figure out, along with something that could only be speed, but then there was a second one just to the right that was also reading a speed, but it was different from the one on the left, which made no sense to him.

Snape's legs were invisible up to the knee since they tucked into the control mechanisms of Thanatos' cockpit but Harry could see them shift in concert with his hands, which were wrapped around a pair of joysticks, as they tilted to make a second course correction. The teacher must have noticed him looking;

"I rather believed you would prefer arriving clean, hence the control rig. Up in the Black I would most certainly use a gel." He commented mildly, making slight twitches to compensate for an updraft off the costal cliffs. Harry nodded and shuffled back in his seat so he was sitting more upright; Hedwig complained briefly at being jostled so he laid a warm hand over her back and she went back to sleep. He craned his neck to look out of the cockpit and watched the sea disappear behind them, feeling a surprising pang of... what? Loss? He frowned and turned inwards, head down and shoulders slightly hunched. Was that what leaving _home_ felt like? Was he allowed to call it that?

He didn't notice the sideways glances Snape was giving him as he shuffled around, trying to get comfortable in the overly large chair. He didn't notice the almost silent sigh Snape let out as he locked one of the joysticks and his hand tapped over a screen.

They remained quiet, and Harry introverted, for the remainder of the hour long journey.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Severus had begun to notice patterns. Small things, small enough that they had built up over the month they had been in close association, only then becoming noticeable. It had begun with Hagrid's comment that Harry was old, somehow. Severus had soon seen what he meant; Harry's calm, reflective attitude screamed of a maturity, a life experience that Harry should simply not have had by age eleven. Only his panic attacks had shown just how incapable of handling such things an eleven-year-old truly was.

Where many children knew to trust people like teachers, doctors, people in authority, Harry _watched_ them, as he had in Severus' temporary office, suspicious and cautious. He had reacted in Ollivanders in a logical, if in the end detrimental way; fleeing from a threat, towards a place of safety. Though the sudden exertion and adrenalin had triggered hyperventilation, the action itself could have saved Harry from being accidentally being sent back to the Dursleys...

Severus resisted the anger building just beneath the surface and flexed his fingers over the joysticks; it would be no good if the stream of instructions he was sending through his Interface was interrupted. But Harry's _voice_ when he had spoken of the planet-born Hagrid was contacting...!

They were fortunate there were no others like him and that there had not been for two years, now, but Harry had been concerned that others had fared as poorly as he had. The compassion was unreal, a phantom, a sheer impossibility, but there it was, nonetheless.

They were coming into District One airspace and he reduced their altitude to slip into the flight lane, above the shielded sky roads, but below inter-district air traffic. He was glad they were airborne, it gave him something to which he was forced to pay attention, away from the difficulties of Harry's short life and non-existent childhood. Severus wasn't stupid; he had seen the little broken army men that Harry carried with him and knew what their jerry-rigged holographics meant. He had contemplated fixing them properly, but had opted to hold that in reserve for a time when Harry didn't have quite as much on his plate. Besides, the work the boy had done alone had been enough and was something Harry should be proud of, if he was capable of pride; Severus could not yet tell.

Too many variables, not enough data...

Severus tried, rather hard, to push such jumbled thoughts to the back of his mind; there was not enough information to say much, so his little theories were quite possibly inaccurate...

He dialled back the power from the propulsion drives and they began to glide; pulling up the nose further reduced air speed and he soon had visual on the Kings Cross landing Rack. Unlike the Norberta, Thanatos couldn't land and take off vertically, but he could land on a very, very short runway; with the precision of a hawk to a fist, Severus and Thanatos tweaked engine power, flap elevation and put down on the bottom leaf of the Rack.

They rolled to a stop in the grip of a strong, flexible barrier and the Thanatos begun powering down. Severus pulled himself out of the control system, using his Interface to finish up the shut-down process. A glance at his charge showed that Harry had extracted both himself and his pet from the co-pilots chair so Severus took the small barrier emitter he'd used to generate the creatures harness and retreated into the small bay behind the chairs, only large enough to pick up an escape pod and care for its occupant. He retrieved his uniform jacket and Harry's pack, dropping the emitter inside, before opening the hatch and letting in the hubbub of the port.

"Wow..." Harry mumbled from his perch, stretching as tall as he could to look over the edge of the cockpit. Severus smirked internally; he recalled his own first view of the Hogwarts Express, it had been a damn fine sight.

Looking out over the port himself, the busy crowds of people surging and flowing over the white stone floor, the great barriers that cordoned off the ships from the melee, he could appreciate it all over again. Looming over it all, the Hogwarts Express and the Lunar Shuttle, great hulks in crimson and steely gray, respectively, crouched on heavy legs. Their stellar engines and propulsion drives filled the enormous space with a subsonic hum that Severus could feel beating against his chest, but not hear, and the glow of the engines, each as big as Thanatos, sent hot blue light over the crowd.

Platform Nine and Three Quarters was already beginning to crowd as students and parents gathered; more arriving even as he watched. The old, Sky-born families were standing proud, their children's uniforms immaculate and their Interfaces displayed clearly by their traditional, severe haircut. The mudder port crew scuttled around them, some fearfully, others respectfully as they finished fuelling the ship and loading luggage. The planet-born were less... striking, but easy to see once you knew what to look for; the children looked uncomfortable in their uniforms, the parents unsure or inordinately proud.

"This is Officer Snape to Port Control, acknowledge." Severus said, raising one hand to activate the microphone on his earpiece. The boy looked up from his study of the port, looking a little pale and Severus found himself putting a hand on that warm, bony shoulder before he could work out why.

"Officer, this is Control. Loading procedure to begin at t-minus fifteen minutes, please ensure that all cargo is secured." Came the rather digitalised voice into the earpiece and he responded with a brief affirmative before turning back to his charge.

"I must over see the Thanatos' docking with the Express, I believe it is time for you to meet your peers." He said, as calmly as he was able, despite the ripple of worry at releasing Harry into the crowd. Thanatos would have to watch the boy for him, however. Perhaps that would be for the best... Harry had enough to deal with without being accused of receiving special treatment. But... the VC community would be expecting Harry to have at the least an escort, if not a full blown guard, it would not be wholly inappropriate.

"Thanks, sir. I think... I think I can take it from here." He looked long and hard into that pale, too thin face and frowned; Harry's expression was determined and... ah, yes, _proud_.

"Very well, Mr Potter, you have your ticket?" He gave that shoulder a squeeze when he just nodded in reply and turned the boy towards himself, going to one knee to meet his eye. "I'll handle your luggage, the Prefects will check that you're strapped in properly, and I'll see you on the other side. The Thanatos will be watching."

"Thanks Professor, I'll be fine; the Express is beautiful." Harry said with that unbelievable, Lily-Evans smile. Severus' chest clenched and he returned the gesture with a terse nod before standing and handing over the boy's pack. Once it was settled on a shoulder and Hedwig was holding on tightly, he lifted the boy over the edge of the cockpit and onto the wing. He went straight for the ladder and was already scrambling down by the time Severus swung himself out of the cockpit. Standing on the wing, he raised his voice just enough to carry over the babble of voices;

"I'll be up front with the Pilot, if you need me!" Harry's face turned up to him, pale skin against the pitch black of his hair making a harsh contrast,

"_Thank you_, Professor!" And he was gone; dropping off the end of the ladder, down the Rack staircase and away into the crowd. Severus watched him go with a fierce frown until the Thanatos reminded him that he had a job to do. Reluctantly, he turned away and went back to his ship.


	14. Takeoff

_AN: Finally, our boy meets a few familiar faces! This chapter and the next may be the last before the Christmas hiatus. Enjoy the chapter and any comments will be most welcome as I gear up to write the next part._

_Rose_

* * *

><p>Chapter Fourteen: Take-off<p>

Harry squared his shoulders as he stepped down into the crowd; it was a daunting sight, but he could see the crimson hull of the Express over the heads of even the densest bits of crowd. With one hand tight around the strap of his pack, he stepped forwards into the melee. Immediately, he had to dodge a businessman chattering away on his comm., who strode at speed and paid not enough attention to his surroundings. He followed in the wake of a man with a trolley full of cargo for a while, until he turned away towards the other transport and then he had to weave through the crowd himself again. It didn't help that the port was a phenomenal building; with great white arches holding up a glass roof and enormous barriers and screens everywhere casting great sheets of colour over the walls _and_ that the Hogwarts Express kept catching his eye. He tried his best to keep his head down and look where he was going but he still managed to get tangled up in the groups of people that would sweep along, using sheer numbers to make a path.

"Now George! It's Ronnie's first trip, you look after him, you hear? I'll have no more of this! " He heard a red-headed mother say to one of her sons as he apologised for bumping in to one of their trolleys.

"Mum, I'm Fred, _he's_ George!"

"And you call yourself our mother!" Harry blinked at the two identical boys, not realising quite how gormless he looked;

"Mother! We appear to have acquired another first year," said the rather prim and proper boy Harry had bumped into, putting a hand on Harry's shoulder. He jerked away from the gesture immediately, feeling rather small next to the leggy, gangly teen. Hedwig plastered herself to his neck and chattered at the crowd of red-heads, he lifted a hand to stroke down her ruffled tail feathers and blinked up at the advancing matriarch; it was obvious that this brood was hers.

"Um... hello?" He mumbled quietly, looking up at the woman.

"Hello there. First time on the Express, dearie?" She asked with a kind expression while her son's milled around behind her and the one small girl in the group clung to her skirts.

"Yes, Ma'am. Sorry I bumped into your son." He found himself being fussed over; her hands flitted over his collar and lapels, straightening and smoothing the stiff fabric. He deliberately took a steadying breath, controlling his flinch at the contact. It had taken a full blown panic attack to get over Snape touching him, though he had been alright with Hagrid from the start... how strange. He was jerked back to reality by the woman speaking again;

"That's quite all right, dear. My youngest son is having his first trip today too," He didn't quite know what to do with the gestures and the warm, proud look in her eyes when she glanced at her smallest son so he just nodded and tried not to look as nervous as he felt.

"Right then, off we go! Find a ramp, Percy, and let's get you lot onboard!"

Harry found himself swept along towards the Express, the tall, prim one leading the way and their mother herding them, and by default Harry too, from the back of the group. The Express' great hulk of a hull loomed over them as they got closer and Harry swallowed. _Space. _ Probably in less than an hour, he'd be in _space_. All the things Aunt Petunia had ever said about the evils of leaving the planet God had made for them flitted through his head and he pushed them away angrily, how many times had Petunia lied to him over the years? Hundreds? Thousands? Had she really _believed_ that her own sister had been some soulless monster? What about his grandparents, had they at least still loved his mum? Snape... Snape had _really_ known his mum, not that he talked openly about her, but there was this look he would get when he talked about his parents... Harry had almost come out an asked, but Snape was so private and he sounded so pain filled when he talked about the war that he had felt it was never the time.

The red-headed family paused at the bottom of the ramp leading up into the Express and fussed over each other, while Harry looked out over the crowd towards the Thanatos. He could just see Snape walking over his hull and supervising the placement of huge barrier straps under the ships' hull. The Thanatos would be coming with them, docked tightly on the Express' underside and, even as he watched, Snape waved off the mudder technicians and the ship began to move, cradled in the grip of a tug. Orange warning lights flashed and the thick stream of people stopped and waited for the ship to pass. Eventually it went out of sight around the curve of the Express, taking his Professor with it.

"Now, give your sister a hug, boys, and we'll see you at Christmas." He turned back to the group of red-heads and watched with a pang of envy as they said their good byes'. The woman, their mother, had an Interface on, tucked neatly over the high collar of a conduction shirt, as did most of the people around him. Students in their uniforms and insignias made their way up the ramp, leaving their parents behind. Most of the adults left behind, watching the windows for their children, were obviously spacers, with Interfaces and conduction shirts and the mudders seeing Planet-born's off were few and far between. They stood out like sore thumbs though, Harry thought as he watched one family part ways, the bushy haired little girl looking both excited and nervous. Her dad looked like a professional, white shirt, trousers and a jacket slung over his shoulder but significantly, his collar gaped open to show throat, rather than conduction shirt. He looked away when the girl was hugging her mother, both embarrassed to be staring and envious.

The prim and proper red-head, who's name he'd over heard as Percy, caught his attention as they passed on the way to the ramp;

"Come along Firstie, don't fall behind!" Harry blinked twice before frowning slightly. The twins came up either side of him and laughed at his expression;

"Don't worry mate,"

"Percy's a Perfect Prefect,"

"We find him annoying too!" Harry blinked again as they traded off sentences and then a spark of recognition made him grin;

"Here, you two are the ones on the hoverboards, when I was in Vertic!" He exclaimed a little too loudly and they suddenly looked mischievous, ushering him after their brother quickly. Their little brother trailed behind them, rubbing at his nose.

"Well now, seems like our,"

"Reputation Precedes us!"

Harry refrained from mentioning that they'd nearly knocked him over and just grinned along, "Should I be worried?" He asked absently as they made their way up the ramp. The hatch in the Express' side was large enough for the three of them abreast, but not the twins' trunks as well, so Harry stepped up ahead and into the busy interior of the transport. The twins looked at each other contemplatively and nodded;

"Definitely!"

Harry just sighed and went ahead to find a seat.

"Look after yourself Wonnikins,"

"Wouldn't want you to get lost on your first day!"

"Oh sod off, both of you..." Harry heard his fellow first year grumble; he was pretty sure his first name wasn't _actually_ Ronnikins... Ron was probably the best approximation.

"Right then. Since we're so,"

"Welcome here... Lee's got a Tarantula,"

"We're going to find it."

"See you, squirts!"

Harry waved bemusedly as they took off through the crowded corridor while their brother grumbled, falling to walk beside him. Ron dropped his trunk off with one of the crew, who was loading them into storage crates to go into the hold, and they headed off themselves.

"Right, we should get a compartment before they fill up." He said and Harry took his first good look at his new classmate; reddish brown Interface, freckles, spacer-pale skin and bright ginger hair. There was a sleepy looking rat on his shoulder, which Harry eyed warily; worried that it would fall off at any moment. It made him appreciate Hedwig's sticky hands and Madam Malkin's work on his uniform; Ron's had no such modifications.

"Um, yeah. We've only got a few minutes left before we leave." Harry replied, pulling his eyes away from the precariously perched animal and craning his neck to look around the crowd.

"Ah, here's one." Ron said, unnecessarily, as Harry slid open the door to a compartment. They settled themselves in the heavily padded seats, Harry with his bag on his lap, by the window. There was a moment of quiet, during which Harry stared out of the large window at the Express' deeply swept back wings. He perked up for a moment when he spotted Professor Snape signing off on something on a data pad someone was holding out to him, but the man soon vanished out of his field of view again. There was an awkward clearing of throat after a minute, and Harry turned back to the redhead sitting next to him.

"Um, hi. I'm Ron Weasley. Uh, nice to meet you." He stuttered and Harry gave him a big grin.

"Same, I'm Harry Potter." He wasn't quite expecting the reaction he got, but he should have, he thought in retrospect;

"_Blimey!_" Ron's eyes practically came out of his head, but he still managed to hold out a polite hand for Harry to shake, which he did_._ "Do you really have the... the...?" Ron trailed off, making gestures towards his forehead, "the _scar?"_

Harry nodded and pushed his fringe out of the way, "Yeah." He fingered the unnaturally smooth starburst for a moment before covering it over again with his fringe.

"Wicked..." Ron said, collapsing back in his seat and staring straight ahead, gobsmacked. Harry was strangely pleased with that reaction and settled back into his seat; it was so... innocent.

"Right, come on!" Came a yell from the corridor and a few minutes later, the whirr and groan of the ramp moving away started up, only to be cut off as the hatch closed. Harry and Ron could just see if they craned their heads out their door. Soon, older pupils with the same insignia as Percy were moving through the crowds of milling kids and herding them into compartments. Since it was just the two of them, Harry fully expected that they'd be joined by a few more people before they took off and he was right.

A very pale, platinum blond first year _sauntered_ in and directed his two companions, hulking lumps that Harry thought looked a bit thick, to sit in the acceleration chairs closest to the door. He himself sat down next to Harry, without so much as a by-you-leave. The kids' hair was slicked back obnoxiously and his Interface was bright, polished silver.

"The rumours are true then, Harry Potter." He said, staring shamelessly. Harry was immediately on his guard, "Malfoy, Draco Malfoy." The hand held out to him was steady, pale and Harry couldn't see a reason to refuse it, despite his unease, so he shook it briefly.

"Nice to meet you, Draco." He didn't notice Ron bristling next to him; the deeply cushioned protective seats were such that he had to lean forwards to see Draco, but couldn't see them both at the same time. An unpleasant confrontation was averted when the Prefect's started strapping in Firsties. Loud commands echoed through the corridor and Harry scrambled for the barrier emitter Snape had given him for Hedwig. Ron's rat went into a padded box and Harry was sure he saw, out of the corner of his eye, one of Draco's pockets writhing. Sure enough, as Harry extracted the harness and convinced Hedwig to get back into it, a gecko emerged and Draco scooped it up to go into its carrier.

"Last Call! Get those Firsties strapped in!" came a voice from just outside their door before the caller ducked into their compartment and worked his way along the row. Draco's two companions, who had not yet been introduced, were first and got firmly strapped in to their chairs, and their pet's checked. When the tall brunette reached Draco, Harry had Hedwig safely into her harness and his bag stuffed in the locker under his chair. She pulled out the bar of the restrainer, split it in two and clipped the pieces into place on either side of Draco's narrow hips, the strips pressed his shoulders and back firmly into the padding of the seat. A third section of barrier sprung up between the two and held the blonds hips too; he looked bored and used to the procedure, perhaps even a little irritated. With a final sharp tug to check the attachment, she moved on.

Harry held himself still as she strapped him in, answering succinctly when she asked about his pet.

"Right then, clip her on, and you're done." He nodded and the prefect checked the restrainer, jerking him forwards slightly and nodded. She moved on to Ron, and Harry made sure to secure dear little Hedwig safely, the warm bundle of lemuro attached to his chest. The Prefect vanished out the door as quickly as she had come and Harry craned his neck around the edge of the seat, first to see Ron, then Draco.

"Everyone alright?" he asked, settling back and pressing his head into the seat.

"Yeah, mate. Shouldn' be any different from any other lift off." Ron said with an easy wave; the hand was all Harry could see of him.

There was a snort from Harry 's other side; "The Express is one of the finest Transports in the Close Orbits, nothing can go wrong!" Draco said with a sneering, arrogant tone that put Harry's teeth right on edge.

"Well, can't say I'd know the difference," Harry replied in a deliberately light tone, "I've not been off planet since before I can remember."

There were indignant splutters of "Really? But you're the _Boy-Who-Lived!_" and various other, related, exclamations. He could just hear, over their inarticulate and outraged comments, the voices of older cadets announcing that they'd finished checking people's restrainers. A man's voice sounded over the ship-wide intercom and Harry couldn't hold back his massive grin anymore; it was time.

The thrum of drives rumbled up into his feet as they came out of idle and he could _feel_ the Express straining forwards until oh-so-slowly she began to move.

Out the window, despite the bad angle, Harry could see the orange flashes of warning lights and the enormous barrier that now separated the ship from the crowd. What little he could see of the people watching them go was dominated by parents waving but before he could react to that, Draco and Ron had realised they were moving.

"Blimey, this is it. _Poseidon_. Bloody hell..." Draco had gone quiet but Ron's mumbles ran on incessantly. The first touch of acceleration had Harry's heart beating out of his chest in excitement and the view out the window showed that they had left the port building for the runway. He rubbed his cheek, it was sore from grinning so much, and couldn't help his nervous, excited laugh as he was pushed further back into the cradle of his seat. The runway was flashing past, now, and the Express tilting up into the sky. The hum of the drives had grown into a roar and the sensation of power echoed under Harry's skin, both terrifying and intoxicating, as they began to rise. A harsh hiss that Harry hadn't even been aware of vanished and they were airborne. The angle of acceleration changed, pushing him down and back, as they began to power upwards and Harry let out a whoop, echoed here and there all through the transport. The take off had made him only slightly light headed, he noted absently and fingers crossed, he wouldn't need to see Snape before his appointment later in the week.

Ron had fallen quiet at some point, Harry didn't know when, but they roared up through the atmosphere without a word spoken. Clouds fell away below them, the horizon dropped away and then, finally, _finally_, the brilliant blue faded into navy, then purple, and eventually star-studded black.

Harry stared at the stars as it finally hit him; he was leaving. Gone from Terra, no longer bound to the earth, the mud and the soil... He let out a long shuddering breath as his heart tried to rise up out of his chest.

"Ceasing Acceleration in three, two, one... We are now in zero-g, repeat, we are now in zero-g." Came the pilots voice over the intercom and Harry braced himself for what Snape had said would be a nauseating and unsettling sensation. The lightness, the floating feeling... Harry was having trouble deciding how to describe it, but his hand was floating up off the armrest all by itself! But... somehow it was familiar and comfortable and _wow._ Maybe, just maybe, he could remember this feeling from a time when he had been a very happy child indeed. The thought rushed up and was overwhelming in its implications and he clung to reality by a thread.

"Right, belts Free, you lot! Out you get." Said the prefect who had strapped them in. Harry looked up and blinked at her, since she was floating at right-angles to what had been down twenty minutes ago. Draco was already out and away, his gecko scuttling around his uniform, and sticking his boots to the far wall. The two hefty boys who had come with him were drifting out of their seats too, reaching for the ceiling with little magnetic pads on their hands. They bumped into each other, and the wall and then the ceiling, until the Prefect despaired and stuck their feet to the wall next to Draco.

Harry's pack was still stowed under his seat, and had his magnetic gloves in, so he carefully stuck his feet to the floor with an Interface command before unlocking the straps over his chest. Hedwig stayed stuck to his uniform sleepily while he pulled out the gloves and fumbled them on, hoping he wouldn't make an idiot of himself.

"Right, you lot! Any Earth-born?" The prefect asked briskly, obviously expecting Draco's two henchmen to say yes.

"Um... I've never been off-planet before, uh..." Harry said, his voice trailing down to nothing, before picking up again, "But I think I'll be ok." He finished, looking at his new year mates.

"Of course you'll be fine! _You_'re Harry Potter; it's in your blood!" Draco's sneer was enormous, and oddly enough, directed at the prefect, who huffed and pushed herself back into the corridor, muttering about 'Malfoy's and their bloody...'

Draco's sneer vanished when she was gone and he tilted his head up to look at Harry, who was standing on a surface at ninety degrees to him. "Don't worry Potter, I won't let you embarrass me; there's a trick to it-" He said, and Harry was prepared to listen, even though he really didn't know what to make of him. Ron broke his silence then, however;

"Harry, you can't trust him, he's a _Malfoy!_" He hissed into Harry's ear, his rat clutched to his chest.

"No mistaking what you are. Freckles, red hair, patched uniform, _you_ must be a _Weasley._" Draco snarled right back, not missing a beat and calmly stepping down to the 'floor' to do it to Ron's face.

"Oh yeah? At least _I_ don't spend hours making myself look like a _pansy_ each morning!" Harry backed away carefully, fumbling to control the magnets in his boots with his Interface. Ron's face was getting alarmingly red while Draco's was simply bent into a furious scowl.

"I do NOT! How dare you-!"

"What, afraid that it's going to float away? History of balding, by any chance, you stuck up little jerk?" The two boys were advancing on each other, faces reddening,

"More children than sense, I hear. What's dear old mum on now, number eight?" Ron went fully scarlet and was gearing up for a full blown roar when Harry decided that enough was enough.

"Shut _UP_! Just, for crying out loud, shut up!" Harry burst out, looking between them incredulously, "What the hell? You've only just met! You don't even know each other's first names!"

The pair of them blinked at Harry, shocked out of their respective tirades, before blurting out, practically in unison;

"But, Harry, he's-"

"Potter, you can't expect _me to-" _

They stopped when they realised they were being talked over and turned to start arguing again, so Harry quickly stepped between them and grabbed a wrist from each boy.

"Draco Malfoy, Ron Weasley, Ron Weasley, Draco Malfoy!" He forced the hands together and had them shake, "There! Now calm the hell down!"

Harry glared at them, trying not to let on that his heart was buzzing with nerves and adrenalin, trying not to show how _frightening _their absurd fight had been and how utterly terrifying intervening was.

Draco recovered first, and tentatively opened his mouth, closed it again, cleared his throat and _then_ started talking again;

"Pleased to meet you. Ron Weasley, Harry Potter. This is Vincent Crabbe, and that's Gregory Goyle..." He looked like he was acting on auto pilot and Harry was grateful to whoever had taught him manners.

"uh... right. Yeah, I'm Ron. Nice to meet you..." the ginger replied, looking rather overwhelmed. Harry didn't blame him, he felt that himself, too.

"Right. Now that's sorted..." Harry mumbled, "You can go back to... whatever it was you were talking about." He kept his mental fingers crossed, hoping that he'd shocked them enough that they wouldn't just argue again. He rummaged through his bag for Hedwig's lunch and his data pad, deliberately not looking at the argumentative pair; the little lemuro was waking up, now that Harry was moving about and it gave him something to do with his hands. He retreated back into his chair and petted her until she was more alert, with one ear on what Ron and Draco were up to, which consisted of blinking at each other, last he checked. It felt strange to 'sit'; in reality, he was floating in the vague vicinity of the chair, his legs turned sideways slightly to jam him in so he didn't float off. Even his hair felt strange, not that it needed any help sticking straight up...

Hedwig cooed sleepily at him when he offered her a piece of mango and she ate lazily, eyes staring off into the middle distance. Her tail was wrapped around his wrist in a warm bracelet of feathers and he stroked his palm down her back. He was so, so very grateful to Hagrid; with each warm, affectionate sound and each delicate touch of her sticky palms, the little creature gave him a little sense of calm. The quiet of the Thrace and Snape's solemn company had been wonderful and now, he felt like he was taking a piece with him.

Without knowing it, the look on his face had silenced his two new acquaintances; it was too much for them to make sense of. But if Severus Snape had seen it, he could have told them that _that_ was the look of a very old, and very wise child, who would take what goodness life would give him.

"Well. Harry Potter, ei?" One Ron Weasley said, in a voice quiet enough that the boy in question wouldn't hear.

"The Boy-Who-Lived." Replied one Draco Malfoy. "Don't mention the hair again."

"Don't mention the freckles." Ron said out of the corner of his mouth, eyes still fixed on the repetitive motion of Harry's hand on his pet's fur.

"Agreed."

They shook on it, eyes straying helplessly back towards the ever compelling Harry Potter, whose fingers were becoming progressively stickier as the mango was consumed.


	15. Poseidon

_AN: In which Draco shows his insecurities and Poseidon is discovered. This is the penultimate chapter before Christmas, you all! Enjoy and sky speed. ;)_

* * *

><p>Chapter Fifteen: Gummy Snakes<p>

"Anything from the trolley, dears?"

Ron looked up from his position floating by the window, as he was sitting; the door was vertically above his head. "I'm fine thanks, mum made sandwiches." Harry thought that the boy looked spectacularly unimpressed with his plastic-wrapped lunch, as did Draco. The blonde was already on his way to the door, pulling himself along with his hands and retrieving a pouch of credit chips from his uniform pocket.

Crabbe and Goyle, having settled with what looked like a pack of hexagonal cards, perked up and pushed themselves through the air after Draco to place their order. Harry couldn't possibly miss the grouchy, unhappy look on Ron's face and his longing glances at the sweets in the trolley's racks. He wiped the last of the mango juice off his hands and retrieved his own money. Hedwig, having never seen the shiny little rectangles before, investigated his handful and bit on one inquisitively. Discovering that they were neither chewable nor tasty, she scuttled back to his shoulder.

Glancing between the money in his hand and the prices on the trolley, Harry grinned and stated boldly;

"I'll have a bit of everything, please!" Draco looked rather approving at that as he shuffled his floating sweets into a bag, while the two gorillas paid him no attention at all. Ron's back was to him, so he couldn't see his reaction but he kept his fingers mentally crossed that his desire to join in the sweet-eating would override any issue of pride. The trolley lady was smiling at him broadly and he turned his full attention back to her, grabbing boxes and packets and even a drinks bottle as they floated his way. After he'd paid up, he needed both hands to get the bags back to his seat, where he could wedge himself in and investigate his haul.

Draco floated nearby, nibbling on a white mouse shaped lump of, presumably, sugar that turned blue the moment it got even slightly wet. Harry was faintly fascinated by the fact that he managed to maintain his decorum, even floating in mid air and biting off bits of mouse. He ducked his head and rummaged in one of the bags, his fingers closing over something soft and squishy that wriggled against his fingers. The surprised yelp that followed grabbed Ron's attention and Harry soon found himself observed by two amused firsties. As he withdrew his hand the thing wrapped around his fingers almost wriggled off again but he tightened his grip and pulled it free.

Ron laughed out right as the long green jelly snake came into view, while Draco's reaction was more subdued:

"Oh, bite its head off already, Potter, before it gets away." He said, licking the blue off his lips.

Harry held the sweet up to his face and used his free hand to get a grip on its 'neck'. After sharing an amused grin with Ron, he bit the head off and chewed happily on the apple flavoured jelly.

"Only got one or two good squirms in em anyway, Gummy snakes, can't get that far." Ron said, accepting the bag from Harry and rummaging inside, "Cheers, Harry."

"I far prefer my food to stay where it is put, thank you very much." Draco said, turning his nose up and polishing off the last of the mouse. "Try one of the Ice Mice next, Potter."

He did, and it turned blue and filled his mouth with searing cold that travelled all the way to his stomach. He grinned blue teeth and Draco, who cringed, before sucking the coloured sugar off again.

"Excuse me, have any of you seen a toad?"

The three boys looked towards the door, where a girl approximately their size was floating, holding onto the door with a magnetic glove. Harry had a sudden thought that he _really_ hoped that the school uniform wasn't a skirt. Thankfully, this girl wasn't wearing one. In fact, her uniform was pretty much identical to his; jacket, snug trousers tucked into magnetic boots and so on. Her hair was... impressive. Whether it was that voluminous normally or whether it was the gravity, he couldn't tell; either way, it was frizzy and _extensive._

"Uh, no... sorry." Ron mumbled, paying very little attention.

"Crabbe? Goyle?" Draco called, but the boys just looked at him blankly. "My apologies, but it would seem you must look elsewhere."

Harry couldn't suppress a little snigger at the sheer _haughtiness_ the boy was capable of, and shook his head when the girl looked at him.

"Oh, well... it's just that Neville's escaped and I'm helping him look... oh!" He went wide eyed, staring at Harry's forehead and he realised with a jolt of unease that he had just scratched his forehead; she had seen his scar. "Where are my manners... I'm Hermione Granger; it's nice to meet you, not that you need an introduction!"

"Hey, yeah... I've been told that my reputation precedes me. Not that I see why," He said with a self depreciating smile, "This is Ron, and he's Draco." He continued, pointing them out. Ron's mouth was full but Draco drew himself up to greet the girl properly,

"Draco Malfoy, a pleasure, I'm sure." He said, laying one hand over his left breast, just below where his insignia would go in a few hours. Harry didn't understand the gesture, but he could guess. Hermione looked confused too, was she planet-born, perhaps?

"Chocolate?" Harry asked, holding out a box of milk chocolate squares that crackled when you sucked on them, but she shook her head.

"I should really be going; I promised Neville I would help." She said, backing her way towards the door again. "Can I... May I come back later?"

"Yeah! Sure, no spare seats, but who needs seats up here?" Harry said with a bright grin as he let himself float. She gave him an equally broad smile,

"I know, isn't it wonderful? I'd heard that the lack of gravity made you inner ear malfunction, but I've not had a problem, this is simply fantastic!" She was excited, it was clear, as she manoeuvred with both hands and feet. Watching, it was clear that she was having trouble using her Interface to turn the magnets in her boots on and off, like Snape had showed him; it was awkward and slow. Definitely Planet-born; Ron and Draco were both moving around effortlessly in comparison.

With that, though, she was gone. Harry was still smiling at her enthusiasm, but Draco's face was dark, brooding.

"Something wrong, mate?" Harry asked, but got no reply beyond a 'hmm' and a nod. Draco retreated to his seat and sucked contemplatively on a toad that, had it not been bright red, Harry would have called Hermione back for. He shrugged and turned back to Ron; "Right, what should I try next? Those bean things were awful."

"Wouldn't say _awful_... bit of a gamble though. How about this, make up for the cold of that mouse..."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Draco stayed quiet for almost an hour, while Ron 'helped' Harry with his sweets, and only spoke up when they were all strapped back in for what the pilot had called 'jump'.

"Potter, I said I wouldn't let you embarrass me, and I won't. That means keeping your head when we jump, understand?" His voice was harsh but there was a little touch of uncertainty in it too, Harry frowned slightly and leaned towards him.

"Not really, Draco. Explain 'jump' to me." Harry said, wondering what it could be, considering Snape hadn't mentioned it.

"FTL, faster than light travel, it's disorienting as... you've never been through manoeuvres, have you? Well, it's worse than that." Draco whispered for some unknown reason. Harry let himself relax again; it seemed true to his nature that Snape referred to FTL by its full name. "This is a short one, you should be quite alright. Not even eight Cints."

Cints? It took a moment, but he managed to retrieve the definition, as seen in his navigation text. No wonder he had barely remembered; that particular text was _dull;_ he'd barely read any of it. Cint: the distance it takes light to travel in one standard minute. He debated whether it was alright to tell his classmates about living on the Thrace, but decided against it; "I've heard a bit about FTL, didn't know it was called jumping though."

"You shall see why, momentarily." Draco said with an aristocratic wave of the hand, he was looking slightly distant and Harry sat back a little to see if he would say what was on his mind... he was not unrewarded;

"That girl, Granger. She was a mud-foot, I'm sure of it..."

Harry frowned, not liking the tone of that comment very much, "You mean... what? Planet-born?"

"Yes... My father says they are not to be trusted; they corrupt our very lives. Let them return to their dirty little _blind_ lives." That touch of uncertainty was back; it was the only thing stopping Harry from recoiling at the spite in the boys' voice.

"Do you believe him?" Harry asked cautiously, his face blank as he could get it. Draco answered immediately with a harsh 'yes', but was then quiet for a long time, and Harry waited.

"Should I?" it was so quiet, Harry almost missed it in the noise of Prefects confirming strap-in.

"I don't know. I grew up on-planet, I have no idea. But... somehow, I don't think she can do anyone any harm." He said with a touch of laughter in his voice, Draco didn't laugh himself, but he did relax just slightly. "Besides, the first VCer must have had Mudder parents, right?"

Draco looked shocked; honest to god, down to his boots, _shocked_. Harry stayed quiet and didn't let the blonde see his amusement at the look on his face. Had he never thought of that? Really? Everyone knew that the first people were born on-planet, probably Terra at that.

"Pst, Harry, what did you _say_?" Ron asked, looking very entertained at the look on Draco's face, who now retreated into the anonymity of his chair.

"Just something about planet-born." He said, trying for casual. Either it worked or Ron wasn't too bothered about Draco's upset since he went off on a rather enlightening tangent immediately;

"Oh, all right then. His family don't like em much. They don' say it, but everyone knows Lucius Malfoy doesn't want Planet-born on Poseidon." Ron was obviously getting full; his sweet eating had slowed from always having something in his mouth to merely always having something in his hand. "I don't see the problem myself, planet-born aren't any different. At least not that I can tell."

"Except being clumsy in zero-g," Harry quipped, waving his magnetic boot in the air; Draco and Ron certainly made him look clumsy, anyway.

"Don't worry, Potter, we'll teach you. Won't we, Weasley?" Draco added in as he was tucking his gecko away in his special pocket, his arrogant bluster back. At least... Harry thought it was a gecko, who knew what other genes it had.

"Uh, sure, I guess." Ron answered, prompted to check on his rat's holding cage.

"What's with the second names, anyway?" He paused as the pilot announced the two minute mark. "Should I be calling you Malfoy?"

"Propriety, Mr Potter!" Draco replied, over the noise of the Prefect's final check in, "Manners! I don't expect you to be as educated as I, however."

Harry blinked, trying to work out what the sneer on Draco's face combined with that little vulnerable glint in his eye meant. He huffed after a moment and shook his head, "Fine!" he too had to raise his voice, this time over the heavy thrumming of an engine he had never heard or felt the like of before, "Call me Harry. May I call you Draco?" He said formally, grinning to take the edge off his annoyed tone of voice.

"Finally! Yes, bloody hell, Harry. Take your time!" Draco's grin matched Harry's and he snatched his bag of sweets out of the air and tucked it in beside him.

"Five,"

"Hold on, Harry!" called Ron,

"Four,"

"And look out th-"

"Three,"

"-e window," Added Draco, the light of excitement in his eyes.

"Two,"

Harry obeyed, quirking a curious eyebrow at the blonde.

"One,"

"Jump."

Harry pressed himself back in his seat as the ship _twisted_. Harry felt like he was spinning; the internal lights went out and the only light was from the stars out the window but soon those too vanished. Absolute darkness descended and Harry felt like he was being squeezed through something far too small for his body; he couldn't breathe and couldn't think until it was over. The pitch dark gave way abruptly to a nauseating swirl of colour and they lurched forwards; the stars reappeared and sunlight streamed in through the window. Harry took a deep shuddering breath, his eyes as open as it was possible for them to go.

"Wow." He said on the tails of a breathy laugh. Slowly, the lights blinked back on and Harry could see both Ron and Draco's faces beaming at him around the edges of their chairs.

"Wow, indeed."

The intercom crackled for a moment and the pilot's voice came out of the speakers once more;

"_PPZZZ... This is Transport Hotel Echo five, niner, seven, two, requesting docking permission. It's good to be home."_

"_Roger that, Hotel Echo! This is Poseidon flight control; it's good to see you. You are clear for loading bay landing, authorization: Lemur, Foxtrot, Yankee. Repeat: Lemur, Foxtrot, Yankee." _

"_kkssst... Copy, Lemur Foxtrot Yankee. Coming in nice and slow for a fore-aft landing. ADS is online and bringing us in."_

The reply was a young voice, female, but Harry wasn't paying that much attention; gravity was back. Or at least, some semblance of it; the force of it pulled him sideways, then down, then back into his chair and he realised the purpose of the deep sides of the seat. The sunlight swept across the compartment and the stars out the window, Solaris included, looked like they were pin wheeling around them. Harry's inner ear was telling him that they were turning and then there she was.

Already, she more than filled the window, blocking out the light of Solaris and the stars. Her gunmetal-gray hull soared in a great sweep up over their heads and Harry could just see the lines of lights on her skin that the Express was following in. The habitat ring swept back past them, a huge, fat ring, hugging the surface of the cruiser like a snake, dotted with tiny specks of light that resolved into windows in the moment before the ring was behind them.

"By the stars..." Ron whispered in awe, "She's enormous!"

They were slowing, Harry realised as he was pressed forwards into the barrier restraining him, and rotating around the cruiser, until he could see the sun glancing against the hull, casting long shadows off a colossal cannon emplacement and the communications rig it was protecting. The long, spidery shadows of radio masts and pickups reached across the surface eerily, and the masts themselves looked terribly vulnerable, out in the cold of space.

"What were you expecting, _Weasley_? She's a Battle Cruiser!" Draco and Ron's bickering went right over Harry's head as he sat with one hand over Hedwig's back and simply stared. The view outside the window was spinning again and Harry's stomach felt like it was doing a back flip. When the world was moving in one direction again, it was backwards! For a moment, it went dark outside again, and then the brilliant white of artificial light flooded the space and Harry realised they must have arrived in the 'loading bay'.

The internal surface was ribbed with thick girders, all a muddy gray but Harry was soon distracted by the heavy sensation of the transport slowing down, quickly. He was pressed back harder in his seat than he had ever felt before and for a moment he couldn't breathe. His head thumped back helplessly against the seat and his eyes closed as he heaved hard against the pressure and managed to draw air in. Then, less abruptly than it had begun, the feeling faded away and he was able to breathe normally again, with Hedwig chattering excitedly on his chest and bouncing.

As he drew long steady breaths to combat the brief surge of dizziness the extra g's had caused he cracked an eye open to look out the window, only to find a pale, freckly face in the way.

"Harry, are you quite alright?" A glance to his right showed an equally, though naturally pale face looking at him in concern.

"I'm fine, I'm just a little anaemic." He answered, feeling slightly warm, embarrassingly. Draco snorted and disappeared around the edge of his chair again, reappearing moments later, floating, with his sweets tucked into a satchel. Harry realised that he must have missed the announcement that it was safe to unbuckle and ducked his head so he could see the emitter holding Hedwig secure. She was all excited now, having slept for much of the journey, and bounced off across the compartment. He watched in slightly dazed amusement as she executed an impressive mid-air turn, used her wing membranes like a parachute to break and landed primly on the far wall.

"Good girl, Hedwig, very impressive." He said with a small smile and she fluffed up in pleasure and soared back to his outstretched arm.

"Come along, Harry, my Godfather is on the Transport, I want him to have a look at you." Draco was saying, going so far as the hit the release for Harry's restrainer. He blinked up at the blonde, but Draco simple raised an eyebrow expectantly.

"I'm fine, I was warned about manoeuvres and the extra g's." Harry said; pushing what was left of his sweets and pastries into his pack as he floated out of his chair.

"Well, I don't trust mudder doctors, so come along. He's up with the Pilot." Harry sighed and settled the bag over his back, pulling one strap over his shoulder and clipping the other over his hips.

"Neither do I, but I'm fairly sure Professor Snape isn't a mudder." Draco's reaction was... complicated. He looked briefly insulted, pleased and intrigued, all at once.

"Well then, he won't mind having another look then, will he?"

"_He's _your Godfather?" Draco definitely looked smug now, Harry thought as he pushed off his chair lightly and drifted towards the now open door. Crabbe and Goyle were stood on either side of it, stuck to what was nominally the floor by their boots. The corridor outside was a mess of floating bags, students and pets, with Prefects yelling out orders and instructions and generally trying to keep the chaos to a minimum.

"Indeed. I haven't seen him in some time," Harry flinched slightly when Draco's hand touched his back, and he hoped the boy wouldn't notice; he hadn't been expecting it. It wasn't as reassuring as Snape's hand, guiding him through the corridors of the Thrace had been, but after that initial jolt, Harry found the contact settling, at least. The maelstrom in the corridor (so many people!) looked easy to get separated in.

"Stay close, Hedwig. Understand?" The little ball of fur and feathers rubbed up against the underside of his chin and Harry knew she wouldn't move until he let her. Ron came up on his other side as they waited for a chance to get out into the corridor and looked at him speculatively.

Little did Harry know but he had managed to make him and Draco truce against so much contention that their fathers were more likely to fight than talk. Understandably, Ron was confused about that, but not so much that he was willing to risk Harry's friendship. And now... Draco Malfoy was obviously _looking after _the smaller boy, with a faint frown on his forehead much like Ron's mothers.

It was difficult to relate this kid to his father after that.

Eventually, Crabbe and Goyle managed to forge a gap in the stream of big upper years using their bulk and they all slipped into the corridor together, Draco and Ron on either side of Harry. If he had known that they were being defensive of him, he might have blushed, or laughed at them, but he was rather looking forwards to seeing Snape and didn't notice.

They were swept along somewhat faster than Harry could keep up with his clumsy use of his magnetics so he ended up _literally_ swept along by the hand on his back and Ron close beside him. Up ahead, Harry spotted the Twins and another boy, all clustered around a box, who's lid lifted on its own accord to reveal a hairy orange and black leg. Harry craned his head to look as Draco pulled him past and spotted a pair of hairy palps and a glint that might have come from eyes.

"Oh, _cool_..." he mumbled, putting one foot to the floor and pushing himself forwards in a rather desultory manner; Draco was doing all the work.

"Not you too... the twins have been going on about that thing all break." Ron muttered, looking white and uncomfortable.

"One foot on the deck at all times! Keep contact, please!" A prefect was yelling at the hatch as they passed, coming into the empty corridor beyond. All the students were heading out of the transport so Harry was in the clear and he tentatively attached his boots to the deck.

"Try not to think about what you're doing too much, you'll be alright." Ron said, patting him on the shoulder.

"Uncle Severus? Yes." Draco had a hand to his ear, touching something black hooked on his ear and speaking quietly, "I met Harry Potter, but I believe you should take a look at him." There was a pause as they walked towards the Pilot's cabin, with Draco listening to whatever Snape was saying.

"No, nothing like that, just a bit... yes." Harry sighed and resigned himself to being... coddled. He silently vowed to himself that he wouldn't be like Dudley. Ever.

Snape came through the doors at the end of the corridor then, just as Harry was getting the hang of zero-g. His hair was tied, to Harry's disappointment; he'd hoped that he'd have the chance to see the usually immaculate Professor ruffled. In fact... the only indication that he wasn't feeling gravity was the eerie way his uniform billowed out behind him.

"Mr Potter, Draco." Snape said curtly, coming to a stop and giving his godson a nod, Harry an assessing glance, and Ron a judging look followed by a sigh and touching his fingers to his temple. "Weasley."

"Good morning, Godfather." Draco said with decorum,

"Sorry about this sir, I tried to say I was fine, but..." Harry said with a sheepish grin, scratching the back of his head. Ron stayed quiet, looking slightly suspicious of this tall, sinister looking man.

"Fine you may be, but Draco nonetheless did the right thing. If I may?" Snape touched Harry's shoulder lightly with a slight rise of one eyebrow. Harry nodded and briefly closed his eyes to concentrate on booting his Interface and letting Snape have access.

As Snape examined his vital signs, Harry couldn't help but fidget slightly; Ron and Draco were looking at each other speculatively, in a way Harry couldn't quite qualify. There was always the possibility that someone would haul off and clock someone in the face though...

"Thank you, Mr Potter. You are quite fine, though I recommend that you do not consume any more glucose for some time." He commented as he stepped back with a stern expression, glancing at Harry's pack, then back at his face.

"Yes, sir." He tried not to think about the absurd quantities he'd eaten; compared to what he was used too, it was far, far too much. Oddly, instead of the usual nausea and heaviness of having eaten too much, he felt 'buzzy' and his head ached faintly. He gave the Professor a thankful smile;

"We should probably head off... Oh! You haven't seen a toad have you?" Harry asked. He had looked over his shoulder at the ebbing crowd and spotted Hermione with a nervous looking boy that was probably Neville, the latter looking crushed and the former distinctly concerned. When he looked back, Snape was looking at him as if he had just pulled a rabbit out of a hat; he wordlessly reached into a pocket and pulled out a flabby, brown, warty object that could, on a good day, be described as a toad.

"I have. You know the owner?" there was a heavy sneer on the teachers face as he held the toad up for examination, but _Harry_ knew that Snape had had a toad once, and _Harry_ could see a touch of some other emotion in those fathomless black eyes. He suppressed any comment, remembering that Snape's toad was long dead and that Snape liked his privacy;

"Yes, sir; it's his, there," He pointed; the boy and Hermione were talking to the Prefect standing at the hatch with worried looks on their faces.

"Ah, the Longbottom heir," Draco interjected, "I met him at the Ministry in June. Hopeless... utterly hopeless..." The last was muttered under his breath, and Harry chose to ignore it.

"Very well, take the toad and find a sixth year escort, they will be at the bottom of the ramp. Dismissed." Snape ordered, handing the toad over to Harry; it sat in an unresponsive puddle in his hand. Hedwig was unable to resist and clambered down his arm to investigate.

The three boys replied to the order with a salute of varying clumsiness; Draco's was crisp and quick, with a smile for his godfather, Ron's was sloppy and he still looked intimidated, and Harry's was wrong-handed due to the toad. The professor nodded in reply and turned with an expert flick of the toe, his magnetic pads clicking as he stalked down the corridor.

Harry grinned at his two companions; "Shall we?" He asked, turning a little clumsily as one of his boots stuck to the deck for a fraction of a second too long, and heading towards the hatch.

"Blimey, Harry, how'd you know Snape? The twins say he's an utter git!" Ron exclaimed in a hiss, Draco looked affronted but was apparently interested enough in Harry's answer to wait.

"I lived with my mudder relatives until this summer, so Hagrid came to fetch me, he's the Keeper of the Codes, and I met Snape then. He gave me a check up and... yeah." He shrugged, as if to say that was it, and Ron and Draco didn't pry any further. Ron looked happy with the explanation, but Draco was definitely curious. Harry winced inwardly, wishing that he'd thought about what he was going to tell people. He hadn't known to expect people who asked questions about _him_ though, that was new...

"Longbottom!" Draco said, voice raised, since the boy was moving to disembark. He, and Hermione Granger, stopped and turned to the approaching boys. "I believe Harry has something of yours."

"M-m-malfoy!" Harry winced at the nervous stutter and stepped forwards as smoothly as he could,

"Nice to meet you, Neville, right?" He said, holding the toad out like a peace offering. The slightly pudgy boy's eyes melted with relief and he reached out for the amphibian.

"Trevor!" the toad seemed to come alive in his hand, turning and looking up at its owned, croaking sorrowfully. "T-t-thanks, Mr Potter," he stuttered again and Harry gawked at being called _Mr_ Potter.

"Wow, um. _Please_ call me Harry, alright, Neville?" He said with a halting start of his own. Neville went wide eyed and started fiddling with a small vivarium in an obvious attempt to hide his reaction.

"Right, yes, of course, Mr... ha ha, Harry. Thank you."

Hermione jumped in impatiently at that point; "We really must be going, or we'll be the last off." He voice was as pompous and grating as Draco's had been earlier, "Oh and you have dirt on your nose, did you know? Just there."

Harry blinked twice before hiding a laugh at Ron's obvious discomfort as he rubbed ineffectually at the smudge. He hadn't even noticed it until the girl had pointed it out, but now that she had it was glaringly obvious; Draco was even edging away.

Hermione managed to flounce off and Harry was immediately impressed with how well she had gotten used to her magnetic shoes. Perhaps it was all that wandering looking for a lost toad... in any case, it boded well for how easy it was to learn. The boys followed, Draco alongside Neville as they exchanged what Harry perceived to be inane comments about Draco's father and Neville's grandmother, and Ron beside Harry.

"Is it gone yet, mate?" the red-head asked, going cross-eyed to try and look at his own nose. Harry took pity;

"Yeah, you've got it. Besides, no one would notice anyway... Hagrid!" Harry exclaimed. As they came out of the hatch and started down to the loading back floor, being very careful to keep contact with the floor at all times, Harry could see the mass of beard and eyebrows that was Hagrid over the heads of the students. His rather large friend stuck out and Harry gave him a wave, which was returned, at great risk to the students gathered around him as they ducked to avoid a clobbering. As Harry was getting down into the crowd, he could hear Hagrid shouting;

"Fourth years, come on now! Yeh know what teh do."

"You know the oa- Keeper of Codes?" Draco asked, managing to keep the sneer low enough that Harry limited himself to a glare,

"Yeah, like I said, mudder-raised. He picked me up." He mumbled, looking out for a sixth year, like he'd been told. There was one in the yellow trimmed uniform of an engineer and he headed over, the other students trailing behind.

"... I memorised all the set texts of course, I just hope it's enough!" Hermione was saying to a white faced Ron, though she was looking stressed herself. Harry had done what he thought was a good amount of reading himself, but _memorising_ stuff? That was a bit much... _particularly the Compendium of Avionic Codes_, he thought with a shudder.

The sixth year (male, tall, with mousy brown hair,) spotted them and called out; "First years? Right, come on! Let's get you in a carriage. Keep your feet down!" He said as Neville lost his footing for a moment and drifted up. Ron tugged him back down and Harry realised what all the fuss was about; the loading bay was huge and once you where away from a deck it would be rather hard to get back without help. Looking back as they trailed after their guide, the Express was sat hulking in the grip of a net of barriers and metal scaffolding that Harry would later learn were called docking clamps. Her red skin was iced in places, shiny and spreading where the cold of the metal caused the water to condense out of the air into a mist. He turned back to pay attention to where he was putting his feet, though with Draco beside him he doubted he would be allowed to 'embarrass' the boy by floating away.

Odd way of putting it, but from the sounds of things, Draco's dad had some issues.

They were soon dumped in a carriage, a sled shaped vehicle that stuck to the metal deck using a blue field that Harry was sure would be invisible if he wasn't wearing his Interface, and the sixth year sped off after someone he obviously knew. Draco and Hermione ended up sitting either side of him, with Ron and Neville opposite, as they stuck their boots and gloves to the carriage floor and walls respectively. They were sitting side on, so when the propulsion kicked in gently, Harry knocked into Hermione, though only gently, and Draco gave an overdramatic, longsuffering sigh. Crabbe and Goyle sat in the back, rocking into the bench and looking blank as they watched the crowd mill around them.

_We're on Poseidon..._ Harry thought, looking up into the vast loading bay and smiling to himself, _I wonder if Mum found it as awesome as I do... _


	16. Fawkes

_AN: This is the last chapter before Christmas, everyone, and then we will get into the meat of living aboard the Poseidon ;) _

_Enjoy, and have a very merry winter holiday!_

_Rose._

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><p>Chapter Sixteen: Fawkes<p>

The journey through the bowels of the ship had them all quiet, even the three sky-born and Crabbe and Goyle, who's blood status Harry didn't know. Even the pets, Harry's Hedwig, Ron's Scabbers and Trevor the Toad were quiet. Harry didn't think Draco's gecko could make much noise if it tried, but he had no idea about the small bundle of fluff in Crabbe's top pocket. Goyle and Hermione didn't seem to have brought a pet at all, which was rather sad.

The spaces they were shuttled through were enormous, but crowded with pipes and engines and things Harry had no name for. They passed through the fighter deck and Harry was captivated by the metal ships, suspended in delicate racks of silver with their swept back wings and quiet drives. The Thanatos was being manoeuvred to join his brethren and Harry felt a brief snatch of contact before the ship went to sleep. It was like a gentle wave, or salute and he returned it unthinkingly, though the gesture went unnoticed by his new classmates.

As they left the fighters behind, they turned into the spine of the ship, the structural backbone of the Poseidon that ran through his heart, from engines to habitat ring, to nose. Branching access hatches with thick doors gave glimpses of more long corridors or rooms filled with machinery through fat sheets of reinforced Perspex.

The line of carriages swung round, coming up to an enormous set of doors, standing open and showing their arm-thick metal bolts and heavy seals. Students flowed out of the carriages, some walking fairly normally, others swarming using hands, some elegantly and some clumsily. Harry and the other six first years were themselves a mixture; Ron used hands and feet, holding on with hands until he got his feet on the deck, and then walking. Neville was clumsy and inelegant, but used his feet almost exclusively; walking over the edge of the carriage and sticking himself to the deck. Draco was the same, only with a kind of flowing elegance that made Harry seriously suspect that he'd had his Interface a lot longer than a few weeks. Crabbe and Goyle were inelegant and business like about it, one swinging his legs over while the other kept hold of him to stop him floating away.

Harry and Hermione glanced at each other with trepidation and just did their best, Hermione managed fairly well, at least, and Harry hoped he'd managed the same. He would have to watch Hedwig, he decided; she was sure to be good at this sort of thing. For now, she was obediently curled up at his throat, with her hands holding on to his collar and her tail wrapped over his shoulder.

The flow of students was loud and excitable and the seven followed the current, Hedwig's mobile head watched people pass, swivelling far too far on her narrow shoulders for a mammal. The overcrowding was enough that going was slow and Harry had time to turn his magnets on and off properly. It was rather disorienting that people were walking on the walls and ceiling, but the room beyond the doors was cylindrical, so the floor simply continued on 'round until it was the ceiling. At intervals, the deck was punctured by hatches, down into which students disappeared. Harry followed Draco to one of these hatches and they pulled themselves into what looked like a lift. Oddly, no one sat on the walls here; everyone was carefully magnetized to the 'floor'. The hatch rumbled closed and sealed them in, some thirty or so students, and Harry was suddenly pushed to the side. Draco was right there, with a shuttered look on his face as he watched the students around them, and held Harry upright until he got his balance back. The twisting sensation stopped and Harry looked askance at his more experienced classmate, but the aristocrat shook his head subtly.

Harry sighed at this, honestly were appearances that significant? Really?

Then, slowly, gravity began to return, just a little at first, and then heavier, until it reached the comfortable familiarity of what Harry would soon learn was 9.8 meters per second, squared; Terran gravitational standard.

Hermione was simply bursting with questions; Harry could hear her rattling off words faster than he could put them into understandable context. Ron was certainly having no luck answering them, since the girl didn't even seem to take a breath.

The lift doors opened and people started flowing out into a tall, curved corridor. A Prefect started talking, calling out for first years and Harry wondered over, behind Hermione, who seemed to have an instinctual reaction to such things.

"Right, over here, first years! Welcome to the Habitat ring! You never know which spoke you're going to come down so _check the number_." He pointed to a large blue number five that glowed on the wall, above an inactive screen. The older students were streaming away to their right and the Prefect began leading them in that direction once the crowd had thinned. "The Mess hall is at SIX, top level. Remember that! Dorms are the bottom level and middle is rec. and Professors quarters."

Harry was lost already, but Hermione was taking notes, actual physical note, on _paper_, and Draco was looking blasé enough to reassure him that at least someone knew what the Prefect was referring to. The floor curved up slightly, so slightly that Harry only noticed when the corridor ahead was clear. It was surreal, since it never felt like you were walking up hill, even though the corridor bent up far enough to disappear behind the ceiling up ahead.

There were no windows here, at least not out to space, only side doors and alcoves in the walls containing ladders.

"Take holds are aft; know where the nearest one is _at all times_! There, there, and there. You open them with a touch to the blue border." He barked and Harry jumped slightly, remembering the horror of Snape's description. The panels along the wall that had held the lifts were obvious, now they had been pointed out and Harry took note of the blue border on the bottom right hand corner. The prefect touched the third one he pointed out and a barrier sprang out, ready to be fitted over chest and hips. Another touch and it was gone and they moved on.

It wasn't far to the mess, only one number away, and they could soon hear the increased volume of students. Ahead, another escorted group of first years were coming down the slope of the corridor. The two Prefects greeted each other, obviously familiar and friendly with each other, and led the two groups into the Mess together. Harry smiled at the new comers, but introductions could wait as they were swept into the large open space.

Immediately, their eyes were drawn to the expansive ceiling; Harry _knew_ that there was an enormous mass of metal and struts and conduits above him but all he could see was sky. Hundreds of thousands of stars stretched into the vastness of space, moving slowly over head and Harry felt like gravity had dropped away again, in the face of that vastness. At the edge, the scene faded into the bluish white walls like the edge of dawn. Larger, closer stars floated in the air above the tables, glowing with a soft yellow and lighting the crowd of black coated students.

They had come in on one of the long sides of a large, rectangular room, long enough that the curve of the ring was easily visible; students at one end had to look up slightly to see those at the other. Four long tables stretched down from one end, filling over half the space while three smaller rectangular tables filled the rest, finished off by a raised dais holding the teachers table.

Long benches ran down the side of the tables, already filling up with students, apart from one of the smaller tables, which was completely empty. The prefects led them up towards the teachers table and they joined up with the huddled group of first years, abandoned by their guides into the care of a tall, gray haired woman with a stern expression on her face.

Harry was, admittedly, having trouble paying attention to his surroundings and just followed the flow of the group; the vast view of the stars was too fascinating. But... there was something wrong about it, Harry knew that they were spinning, the ring rotating to generate the feeling of gravity, but the field of stars was moving far too slowly. He itched to find out but it would have to wait; the last of the first years had just arrived, if the imperious call of 'Gather round!' was anything to go by.

"Now, I am Professor McGonagall. Welcome to Poseidon. In just a moment, the fourth years will be sorted into their Professions, but first you must receive your Insignia." The woman was saying, "The Pilot will welcome you, introduce you to Poseidon and give you your badge and rank. You all have your Interfaces?"

There was a round of nods and sideways glances; lots of people reached up to touch their Interfaces nervously and Harry got his first look at Hermione's. It was a gentle, soft brown with intricate carvings over the arms and spine that gave the distinct impression of a tree, with delicate branching limbs and fine roots. He automatically lifted a hand to his own, feeling it warm against his neck in response. Its surface held no pattern or carving but he couldn't find it in himself to be envious as he ran his fingers over the clean lines.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Draco Malfoy watched that peaceful expression creep over Harry's face again and felt a tension in himself ease; he was nervous about meeting the Pilot, his Father had '_impressed'_ upon him the importance of making a good first contact. His arm was still sore. But, as he looked over the students nearest him, a mud-foot, a Weasel and a coward, a wave of cold settled over his skin as he realised that the disgust his Father had told him clearly to feel for such people, simply wasn't there. Sure Neville was clumsy, but it wasn't _disgusting_ and the Granger girl was so blatantly nervous that it was cringe worthy. The Weasel was acceptable, even.

His Father would be Angry...

He turned in on himself a little and crept a half step closer to Harry, feeling the need to seek out his godfather but without that option, the enigma of Harry Potter would... do. Somehow.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Come now, in a line." The stern woman, McGonagall, was saying and Harry ended up standing between Draco and Hermione. The Mess was going quiet and Harry had the disturbing feeling of hundreds of eyes looking at the back of his head. Or, if not at his head specifically, then the first years in general. When he glanced up at the teachers table, however, the sight of Professor Snape looking down his long nose and him and, Harry thought, Draco, was enough to bolster his spirits and straighten his spine.

The last murmurings of the crowd cut off abruptly and quiet turned into absolute stillness. The only sounds were the soft pad of feet and the closing of a door to the side of the teachers table. Harry looked round, as did the rest of the first years, and had to struggle rather hard to avoid gaping like a fish. This had to be the pilot, who else could it be? McGonagall smiled and bowed slightly as the figure passed, before making her way to her own seat.

He, she? Was beautiful, and not quite human. He, Harry decided, had golden skin, like someone who spent time in the sun, and wore a crimson robe, edged in gold that flowed around him as if he didn't feel the illusion of gravity. His limbs were long and narrow and he walked like... like something Harry didn't have words for, but it was smooth and breath-taking. He was beautiful and Harry once again had trouble deciding whether he was a boy or a girl. As he got closer, what Harry had thought was a mane of red hair turned out to be feathers, deep red and glinting gold in the light of the small suns. They started as the smallest, softest feathers Harry had ever seen at his temple, which then lengthened into long, soft quills that flowed over his head and to his shoulders. Around his eyes were rows of golden specks that caught the light, but his eyes themselves were hard to see, since he was looking towards the head table.

The wizened, white haired old man that was sitting at the centre, presumably the headmaster, raised his hand in greeting and the Pilot returned the gesture with a warm smile that Harry found himself wanting to be on the receiving end of.

That done, the Pilot turned and stood before the first years and _smiled_. Warm, welcoming and soft and everything the Harry had hoped for.

"My name is Fawkes, I am Poseidon's Pilot and we welcome you all. I know this is strange for some of you, and something long awaited for others, but from today you are all Crew! One and together." Harry was captivated by the serious look on his face and those _eyes_, a brown so light it approached the gold of his feathers and that, as they swept over the line, promised safety. "Welcome."

With that, Harry had a brief reprieve as Fawkes moved to the end of the line and out of his view. He announced the name of each first year as he made his way down the line, spending a varying amount of time with each person. Hermione was buzzing next to him, full of energy and unable to keep still, craning her neck to try and see over the heads of her classmates. From the way she half opened her mouth, and closed it again it was clear that she wanted to say something, but the quiet was still heavy, though not as absolute, and the head table was looking down on them.

Fawkes reached Ron first of their little group, then Crabbe and Goyle, but it wasn't until he reached Draco that Harry could see anything and he watched out of the corner of his eye as the Pilot bent down slightly and touched the blonde's Interface very gently, his finger tips resting on the spine and his palm against Draco's pale throat. The little Malfoy tipped his head back obligingly, his eyes sliding closed and tension slid off him like water, his shoulders dropping and his back straightening. Whatever Fawkes whispered in his ear was for Draco's ears alone and Harry could hear nothing more than the gentle susurration of air.

It lasted only a moment, enough time for a few sentences, no more, before Fawkes was slipping a hand into his sleeve and pinning the silver insignia of the Poseidon onto Draco's chest. On the opposite lapel went the single bar that denoted that they were first years and then Fawkes was brushing off Draco's uniform with long, elegant fingers and smiling down at him. There was something just a little sad in the slant of his eyes as he looked down at Draco, but Harry felt like he was intruding on an incredibly private moment and looked away.

Next he knew, Fawkes was before him and one of those elegant hands was sliding under his chin and bringing his head up. Emerald green met golden brown and Harry could have cried for the gentle understanding there. After a moment, a questioning look came up and Harry gave a faint nod, copying Draco and letting the Pilot touch his Interface. The man smoothed Hedwig's feathers out of the way with a gentility that could only come from having feathers yourself and then warm fingers were sliding around the side of his neck and touching the spine of his Interface tenderly.

_Knowing_ passed between them and Harry could feel Fawkes' sadness as he saw Harry's relatives and what had happened at Gringotts.

_Peace, Harry Potter, may perhaps be too much to ask, but you are not alone._ Fawkes' voice was as rich and warm as his smile and Harry was captivated by his eyes. His comment conjured images of Professor Snape and Hagrid in Harry's mind, to which Fawkes smiled gently and added images of Harry's new classmates. _Already, you have done dear Draco a great service, you must let him return the honour._

Harry did not understand, but he could feel the ring of truth in the words and he let his eyes close.

_I've never been looked after before, sir. I don't really know how to react._ He thought with a sort of pained amusement, making Fawkes' barely there touch tighten reassuringly, his thumb running over the smooth skin on the side of his neck.

_Give it time, Harry. _The Pilot's soft voice said, gentle and wrapping Harry up in comfort, before he backed off slightly and spoke in a whisper; "It is time to meet Poseidon, Harry, open your Interface and I will make the connection."

Harry obeyed, tentatively letting his Interface become active and immediately he could feel the ship's heavy awareness looming over him, masculine and powerful.

_You are strong, we know. We have Seen._ The voice that rattled inside his head echoed, softened only by Fawkes speaking together with the ship. _You could be great, a person of power, and a child your parents would have been proud to see grow into a man._

Flashed of the Dursleys as they told him lies about his drunken, violent parents flashed through his mind and a great roar filled his head as Poseidon reared in anger. Harry felt Fawkes' arms go around him and pull him tightly to his chest; he felt like summer sunlight, so warm... Tears that Harry had let out only twice since his rescue fell silently down his cheeks and into Fawkes' feathers.

"I know they were wrong, that they lied, please don't be angry, Poseidon..." He whispered with his eyes closed as Fawkes' hand on the back of his neck pressed his head firmly into the crook of the Pilot's shoulder. "You're a warship, aren't you? Well I've fought that war, and I _won._ They didn't starve the VC out of me, and now I'm free. It was my war... and now it's over." He finished, feeling the battle cruiser calm, though Fawkes was now trembling faintly with grief.

"I knew Lily and James Potter, Harry, I... we will..." Fawkes whispered almost incoherently and Harry patted him gently on the shoulder,

"I'd love to hear stories about them," He whispered back, burying his face more firmly into Fawkes' feathers for a moment, "But not in front of the whole Academy, mhh?" He said, a weak laugh bubbling out of him as he imagined the bemused look on the students faces. Fawkes' returned the amusement, though he didn't have it in his to laugh just yet, and he pulled back, standing smoothly.

With the touch to his Interface gone, Harry couldn't feel Fawkes as he had before, though Poseidon loomed still, much like Thrace had done. It was clear that the Pilot was severely shaken, though; his hands trembled as he fixed Harry's insignia to the plate that was waiting for it and pinned the bar to the other side.

"Welcome, Harry Potter." He said in the same, powerful voice he had announced the other students in. The room exploded with excited whispers and Harry sighed heavily, looking up at Fawkes with a wry expression. The man's eyes were deep, liquid pools with the tears he hadn't let fall and Harry's felt about the same. Fawkes' final touch was to wipe away the tear tracks, concealing it by brushing his fingers through Harry's hair so it settled more comfortably over his scar.

With that, Fawkes gave him a slight push towards Draco, who's hand touched his elbow as if to reassure himself that Harry was, in fact, still there, and the Pilot moved on to Hermione.

Mindful of how personal his own conversation with the man had been, he didn't watch this time and gave Draco a reassuring and thankful look instead. Thinking of which... he looked up to the head table and caught Snape's eye. It wasn't difficult; the man was trying to bore a hole in his head with his gaze. Harry gave him a slight smile and the man sneered back, turning to the man next to him, who was wearing the most absurd purple turban. It made his head look really small...

Looking back at his fellow first years, it was clear that the things Fawkes' had said had changed each and every one of them; they stood taller, their backs straight and proud. They even stood closer to their companions, exchanging excited grins instead of nervous looks.

No one else looked quite as shaken as he felt, but there _were _thoughtful faces, here and there. It was hard to keep himself distracted from the things Fawkes had said, but soon Hermione was by his side, standing tall and still bursting with energy. Whatever the Pilot had said to her, it had fired her up even more.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When the welcome was over, they were shuffled to the first year's table, and they settled with much whispering and excitement. The Headmaster was standing and talking to the fourth years that Hagrid had just brought in, but the first years were too busy gossiping to pay attention. Harry did watch briefly as a girl with very blonde ringlets received a pair of wings, showing that she'd chosen to train as a pilot, but he could only avoid the talk on the table for so long.

Draco had sat next to Harry, but he was talking earnestly with the two boys he had arrived with, on the Express. Crabbe and Goyle... given Draco's weirdness about names, Harry wondered if he should ask them formally for their first name, but then he got to watching their faces and was distracted. They focused with almost unnatural intensity on Draco's face and words, frowning as if they didn't quite understand, while Draco was explaining that they didn't have to tell anyone what Fawkes had said to them.

"I can't wait to see the first Quidditch match, the twins are on the team. Beaters, they swear it's the best position!" Ron was nattering on from Harry's other side, leaning across to a boy sitting opposite who had almost as many freckles as he did.

"I don' know, mate. Seeker's pretty cool. Seamus Finnegan, by the way." He said in a rather thick accent that Harry couldn't identify.

"Ron Weasley. You heard about the Cannon's new Seeker?" and they were off. Harry's investigations into Quidditch hadn't got as far as teams, though he sort-of-maybe remembered what the positions were, so he leaned in with a tentative question, which set Ron off _again_.

When the fourth years were done, and a new rank of blue, green, yellow or red pinned to each chest, the Headmaster stood and gestured for silence. The first years were the last to notice, and Hermione hissed vehemently for quiet;

"Old friends and new faces; Welcome to a new year!" the Headmaster said through his beard. Harry could only see his mouth moving by proxy, by the rustling and twitching of his beard and moustache. "You have had the entire summer to get your heads nice and empty, and now it is time to fill them up again! But first, your stomachs; eat up!"

With that, the Headmaster clapped his hands and up and down the tables, little round hatches opened up and large platters, pots and plates of food were raised up and pushed out onto the table. Harry watched hungrily as the platter nearest him rose and then with fascination as the little bot doing the delivering looked around for somewhere to put it down, before vanishing back down the hole in the middle of the table.

Ron was unfazed and fell on the chicken messily, talking with his mouth full; "c'mon 'Arry, won't be any chicken until we reach port again, now."

He laughed at the disgusted expression on Hermione's face, sitting opposite, and pulled a drumstick onto his plate. "Food's food." Harry said, before taking a bite out of his meat,

"Well, yeah, but still. This is good." Ron _still _had his mouth full, and Harry leaned away from him slightly, with a look of horrified fascination.

"Ron, really, must you? That's hideous! I can see your tonsils!" Hermione said incredulously, having served herself a plate that had much more green than anyone else's. When Harry spotted the gravy, he joined her in having some of the broccoli; each head was slathered in gravy and its flowers bitten off.

"Oh, lay _off_, would you? I left me mum back at the port, I don' need another one." Ron was saying, his mouth full of potatoes this time.

Harry ducked his head and concentrated on his dinner; after all, a couple of pastries and a cauldron cake did not make for a filling lunch and he could do without the bickering. The chicken was filling, and soon his stomach was deliciously warm and full; a sensation that he was rapidly coming to appreciate, even if it did make him sleepy. Hedwig was disdainful of the meat, so he filled a spoon with steamed carrots and some of the fish in his bag for her. As he had come to expect, she descended on it with relish, a carrot wheel in one hand and a strip of dried fish in the other. He carefully removed her tail from his wrist and let it wrap around a glass instead, and went back to eating; the little robots had reappeared and were taking away empty dishes and dirty plates so he finished up quickly.

A glance at Snape revealed no disapproving glower, so he assumed that he'd eaten enough and he was sure a little more wouldn't go amiss...

A pair of prefects came with Fawkes to take them to their dorm after they were comfortably stuffed and polished off with some rice pudding. Harry was all too happy to trail after the golden red back of the Pilot, yawning with his pack dangling off his shoulder and Hedwig snuggling into the crook of his shoulder. He could hear Hermione pestering one of their escorts further back in the group of forty or so students but Ron and Crabbe were with him; tired and subdued from full stomachs.

Two lifts and a short walk along the ring and they were being directed down ladders into seven-man dorms, their names were by the alcove down... which was weird, because out of the twenty odd boy students, it was a big coincidence that he was with Ron, Neville, Draco, Crabbe and Goyle. There was another boy, listed as B. Zabini, who went down first and was the only one Harry didn't recognise. One by one, his new dorm mates went down the ladder and disappeared, while some of the girls filtered off to the left and the rest of the boys went further down the corridor. After a while, Harry was left there, standing next to Fawkes. He hadn't planned it, but he was glad it had happened by accident when the man enveloped him in another hug.

"Thank you, Mr Fawkes," He said into soft robes, making the chest underneath them rise in a huff;

"Just Fawkes will do, Harry, and you're welcome. Now go on, get some rack." He said as they pulled away from the embrace, the man's hands still on Harry's shoulders for a moment. Harry gave him a sleepy smile and nodded,

"Good night, sir." Fawkes was smiling again.

"Good night, Harry." And the pilot, feathers and all, was off down the corridor, speaking to the Prefects quietly and shuffling and remaining first years down into their dorms.

Harry turned and made his way down the ladder and into the quiet of sleepy boys getting ready for bed.


	17. First Day

_AN: Aha! I have returned! I had a fabulous Christmas and New Year, I hope you all managed the same. I have a new Nephew, who shall henceforth be known as Magpie; born healthy and strong, we are all very pleased. _

_In other news: Updates will not be twice a week again! I'm sorry, all, I have a scientific paper to write and they are truly a thing of horror. I should be finished by the end of January and updates may pick up again. _

_In any case, here's the next chapter; Enter Quirinus Quirrell._

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><p>Chapter Seventeen: First Day<p>

The dorm was brilliant, tucked under the corridor above and folded into seven little cubbies with an open space in the middle, beside the ladder. Each one held a large, curtained bed tucked into the corner, the frame of which was a part of the floor and wall. A trunk sat at the foot of each bed and a desk with cupboards next to the foot well was bolted to the wall opposite the bed. Harry recognised his cubby as the second from the left, by his name printed on the sturdy trunk Snape had given him. There was a note written on a barrier floating by his trunk, saying that it was bolted to the floor magnetically and not to release it. the curt tone was reminiscent of Snape, and Harry wondered when he had had the time. It was weird to think about the man checking up on him; wasn't he just another student now? All the same, it was... pleasant? Warming, perhaps, to know that the man hadn't given up on him.

The carpet was thick and squashy and lit the room with soft cream light in the same way as the one in his room on Thrace had, though there was a light on the ceiling of the central space as well. Neville was sitting at his desk, to the left of Harry's when you stood by the ladder, feeding his toad with crickets and Harry was rather grateful that he hadn't done that at dinner; not only was it gross, but Hedwig would have been jealous. As it was, she was sleepy and full and reluctant to leave his shoulder so he just shuffled her slightly to take his bag off.

Ron was already sticking up a poster of his favourite Quidditch team; Harry was shocked by the amount of _orange_ there was involved, and curious about the picture itself; it was moving. Whether it was a vid clip or independently animated, he couldn't tell... If it was anything like his army men, the black bar that Ron was attaching to the wall was the image generator, and the image itself was projected onto an opaque or half-see-through barrier. Maybe he'd ask to take a look, later... when he wasn't quite so sleepy.

He emptied out his sweets and Hedwig's supplies and stuffed them in the bedside cabinet, and put his precious data pad on top. The little program Snape had added to show the time started up and projected a hologram of numbers up a few inches above its face; it was late, no wonder they had all been ravenous.

He deposited Hedwig on the bed gently; though she wasn't all that impressed, she curled up on the pillow and watched him with big eyes. The bed looked very appealing right now, he had to admit, but he had a promise to keep for Snape, so into his trunk he went.

Two supplement pills and a good brushing of teeth in the dorm's bathroom later and not only was his bed looking even more appealing, but Hedwig had gone to sleep and he desperately wanted to join her. He changed into pyjamas quickly and wriggled under the covers, delighted to find them warm, with Hedwig tucked close to his shoulder.

There was a quiet chorus of 'good night's and Harry closed the curtain that ran around the foot and open side of his bed.

He fell asleep quickly.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

When he woke up, he thought for a moment that he was on the Thrace, with the light of the water shimmering around him. Ripples of light and shade played across the canopy above his bed but it wasn't quite right; the bed was smaller and a body-hugging foam rather than a mattress. Hedwig's happy little trills were the same and he realised that she was the source of the rippling light. She was climbing the curtains around his new bunk and the fluttering was making the light from the softly glowing floor shift.

He smiled up at her and held out his hand for her to leap to. She landed softly, upside down, and he pulled the curtain aside to retrieve his glasses. When he put his feet down on the carpet, it glowed brighter in a circle around the weight, providing enough light for him to find and open his trunk.

It had gotten a little messy over the last couple of weeks, but he'd neatened his trunk up when he'd packed, so he knew where all his clothes were. It took a good lean in, since they had made their way to the bottom of a stack but he fished out some clean underwear and a fresh conduction shirt. Next was his wash bag, but he'd used that last night, so it was sitting on top.

He was the second one up, it seemed: Draco's curtains were open and the floor showed fading patches of cream glow where he had walked to the bathroom.

The loo was weird; it didn't have any water in until you flushed it, and the shower stalls were little sealed rooms where water came at you from multiple directions; for a moment Harry felt a little hemmed in by the solid walls and the way the sound of his feet bounced in the small space but once the shower was on, it was worth it. Hot, and high pressure and Harry had to admit that he spent longer than necessary in the water. It made him feel less selfish when he realised that Draco still hadn't gotten out of the other stall once he'd finished, though.

After dressing, drying Hedwig off and riding out the initial rush of putting his Interface on, he ventured back into the middle of the dorm, where Hedwig was being introduced to Trevor. Unfortunately for Harry's stomach, this meant that she was having a breakfast of small insects, but _she_ loved it; all the crunching she could want. He flopped down on one of the big squashy cushions that Ron had rooted out of a cupboard and turned to smile at the boy he didn't know;

"Hey, I'm Harry, nice to meet you." He held out his hand to the boy, who was sitting on a cushion with his back against the wall between his and Harry's cubbies.

"Blaise, it's a pleasure I'm sure." The boy drawled in the same aristocratic accent as Draco, as he shook Harry's hand. There was a brief flicker of his eyes up to the infamous star-shaped scar, but he made no comment, which was appreciated.

Ron chose that moment to emerge from another cupboard in the wall behind the ladder with a triumphant 'aha!' and another big cushion;

"Morning Ron." Harry mumbled, smiling at Ron's PJ's, which had pictures of a small, winged object in gold all over them. The boy gave his own greetings and Ron flopped down with the rest of them; Crabbe and Goyle were seated together, against the wall on the other side of the ladder, leaving only Draco out. There was a spare cushion though, which left some hope for Ron and Draco's civilities.

Ten minutes of idle chatter about the other firsties people had met so far and Draco was out, dry and ready to go and snidely commenting on Ron's state of undress; they all set off for breakfast once the red-head was in uniform. Harry was slightly envious of the ease with which Ron Interfaced; he didn't gasp, or arch or even pause as the matte-silver metal slid into place. It made Harry feel pretty self-conscious about the massive rush he still got from his.

After their big, rather late dinner the night before, _some_ of them didn't feel like eating much once they reached the First year table but Ron, Crabbe and Goyle went at it as if nothing had happened. They stuffed their faces with kippers and eggs-that-weren't-really and things that looked like fried potatoes but had probably grown underwater, while Harry stuck to fruit and toast.

After a while, Harry could feel Snape's eyes boring into him from the high table and dutifully spooned a kipper onto his plate, keeping it away from Hedwig's sticky fingers. When he looked up at the teachers, the black eyes of their Organic Electronics teacher were on his own breakfast but that strange man in his silly turban was looking at him... Harry shivered uncomfortably, like someone had just dropped an ice cube down the back of his neck.

Suddenly, like someone had slapped him with a stinging nettle, his scar was burning and stinging and he hunched over, pressing his palm to the shiny skin. His hiss of breath attracted the attention of those sitting close by and hand gingerly landed on his back.

"-you all right? _Harry?_" Draco was saying from his right, while Hermione, who had taken the seat to his left rather primly, as asking him if he wanted her to get a teacher.

The strange burning was already gone though, and he took his hand away from his forehead. "I'm fine. Don't worry about it."

There was a delicate snort from behind him and Hermione's exclamation of 'Fawkes!' made it clear enough who it was, "I'm sure you are, Mr Potter. Your timetable." The man said as Harry smiled sheepishly up at him and took out his data pad for Fawkes to put the timetable on. He gave a single, pointedly raised eyebrow before looking at Draco expectantly, who fumbled as elegantly as it was possible to fumble for his own 'pad.

Looking at his timetable, Harry realised why; there was an appointment to see Snape listed there, in a red box, over lunchtime. A glance at the head table showed Snape's own tablet disappearing back into his uniform and the man's eyes boring into him, _again_. Harry very deliberately didn't look at the man in the purple turban; why tempt fate and a face full of stinging nettles?

Hermione was easily distracted from Harry's brief exclamation of pain by her own timetable but Draco was shrewder than that and was giving him sideways glances; he had, after all, seen Harry struggling to breathe against the weight of acceleration. Ron was looking at him funny too, making the ginger look cross-eyed which in turn made Harry laugh at him, deliberately putting the little bit of scar pain out of his mind.

Hermione was twittering happily about their first lesson, throwing terms that Harry didn't recognise around like confetti and a quick comparison of timetables showed that they had most of their classes together. It wasn't surprising given that there were only forty students in the year and Harry was grateful that he'd have familiar faces around.

Leaving the Mess, they went to find a lift that wasn't full and were soon amidst the wave of students headed for their first classes and struggling with zero-g. Hedwig had taken to sitting on his head again, earning him some funny looks, as he carefully followed Draco and Hermione. They didn't stay in the spine long and soon turned off down a corridor marked 'Communications', along with what Harry assumed was the rest of the class filtering in around them.

Moving as a pack certainly had its advantages, Harry thought as Hedwig made a leap for Draco's head moments after he had stopped Harry from 'embarrassing' him by losing touch with the metal deck. The blonde was not impressed by Harry's pet and caught her mid-float, gently enough, and pulled her to his chest instead of letting her at his impressively neat, slicked back hair. His gecko, Jareck, emerged from his pocket to investigate the new arrival and Harry was _sure_ that he was a different colour to what he had been the last time Harry had seen him.

The petulant glare that Draco sent his way almost made him laugh, despite how bad Draco's reaction would be, and fortunately the Sky-born huffed and marched into the classroom without noticing. As they all filed in, the gray-haired woman from the ceremony the night before began giving orders;

"Pets at the back, if you please! Data pads out and Interfaces powered down for now." She was saying. Harry listened with one ear while making sure Hedwig was behaving for Draco and then looking for a desk. The room was laid out like a normal classroom, to Harry's relief, despite the fact that students could quite as easily walk on any one of the ceiling or walls as they could the floor. But then, he supposed, the writing on the board would have been upside down, or sideways or some version of wrong-ways for some of the students.

Ron had already claimed one of the slate coloured desks and Hermione had settled nearby so Harry tucked himself into the chair next to the ginger. The chairs were not so much to take your weight and more just to stop you floating off, Harry noted with slight consternation as the furniture bent slightly as to hug his hips. The desk was metallic, it turned out, and he was able to attach his 'pad to it with a magnetic bolt.

Hermione was already fluttering; she skimmed through a text on her pad with frightening speed and glanced up at the teacher frequently. Ron was busy watching as someone's data pad floated up out of their reach and laughing... Draco, curiously, was sitting with Blaise and a group of kids Harry hadn't met yet. They all had that same poise and arrogance that Draco did, though the girl fawning on Draco's arm looked more like a pug than a noble. The blonde was not smiling; the curve that _should _have been a smile looked more like a sneer and Harry frowned as a bad feeling crept up on him. That was the expression Draco had worn when saying horrible things about planet-born...

"Quiet now! Pay attention." The teacher called from her desk, standing between it and the large screen on the back wall. "In this class you will be learning how to communicate over the vast distances and cold of space."

Hermione was pulling a screen from her data pad to take notes on and Harry hurriedly copied, though he wasn't sure what he was supposed to be writing down...

"First, we will address the phonetic alphabet; many of you will know parts, if not all of this already and you are expected to aid your classmates." She gave them all a stern look and Harry caught Draco's eye across the room, giving him a half smile and a pleading look to which the blonde rolled his eyes and turned back to the front.

"This alphabet is of utmost importance to the clarity and accuracy of communications over all light speed channels, be it radio or optical. Interference from Solaris, or even another ship can muddle the signal so it is vital that alpha-numerical codes are completely clear. Anyone messing around in this class will leave and be forced to explain to the Pilot _why_ you are cleaning the corridors in your free time!" McGonagall tapped a finger on the screen behind her and a stream of letters flowed over it and formed up into an alphabet where each letter was accompanied by a word. "Now, after me. Alpha, Bravo," She paused after each word and listened to them say it. "B_ra_vo, not the French Bra_vo_, Miss Parkinson. Charlie, Delta,"

They were all familiar words, Harry realised and he supposed that that was the point. After she had run through the alphabet once, she let them start up their Interfaces and copy the Alphabet down. As Harry let his eyes fall still in concentration, he heard a dismayed "what?" from Hermione across the aisle. It broke his focus and he looked across at the planet-born; she already had things written on a screen projected up from her tablet and it was immediately apparent that she had been using a mudder style on-screen keyboard. For all he knew, she'd had no practice at using her Interface to move text around at all; her expression said it all.

He looked around and seeing everyone else glancing from their data pads and associated screens to the board and back again, he leaned over and repeated the instructions Snape had given him and urged her to give it a go.

"Go on, try it. It's in the... Manual thingy, somewhere, can't remember." He said, giving her an encouraging nod towards her tablet.

"Potter! Everything quite alright? Miss Granger?" Harry looked up to find McGonagall standing in the aisle not far from their bent heads. He gave her a nervous smile and pulled himself back to his seat quickly.

"Um, yes Ma'am, Sorry!" He stuttered, waiting for her to start shouting and ducking his head.

"Harry was just helping me, honest, miss," Hermione said and Harry could have sworn; it never made anything better, it would just get her in trouble too!

"Very good Mr Potter. Did he explain to your satisfaction, Miss Granger?"

Harry missed Hermione's response as he was gawping at the teacher. After a moment, Ron's elbow knocked him in the ribs and he shut his mouth with a snap. McGonagall was fleshing out Harry's explanation with her back to the boys and Ron hissed in his ear;

"Blimey, Harry, what'd you go gawping like that for? Make yerself look right guilty."

"Yeah, right. Um, where are you up to?" Harry said, trying to change the subject and distract himself from the rapid thrumming of his heart.

"Quebec. Don't know what _that _is..." Harry returned Ron's bemused expression with a faint grin and activated his Interface to catch up. It wasn't much different from copying something down on paper; you just fed it through digitally instead, so it didn't take much of his concentration. With his heart thrumming in his ears, he took deep breaths and held them for slightly longer than normal. Incrementally, his heart calmed again as the adrenalin leeched out of his system and by the time he reached 'Victor' 'Whiskey' and 'x-ray', it stopped sounding quite so loud in his ears.

At least they were in zero-g and the dizzy spell that had accompanied his fright hadn't been noticed... God, he felt so _stupid_! Being frightened of a teacher was a legacy from his days with the Dursley's and he so wanted to forget those days, those _years_. No teacher had ever threatened him, but his report card had been a thing of dread and _Dudley_ was such a-

"You coming, Harry?" He jerked and looked up to find Ron standing with a hand on his shoulder, frowning.

"Yeah, sorry. Give me a minute." He hastily shut down his data pad and shoved it in his bag; he had finished the work without really noticing and the new folder labelled "Comms" now had a dated and labelled file containing the alphabet and a couple of designations written out phonetically. He'd have to ask Snape later why the Poseidon's code was triple zero...

He was a little vigorous in standing up and forgot to work his boots properly, leaving him floating up towards the ceiling and at Ron's mercy. The ginger did laugh at him, but he pulled him back down before too many people noticed.

Soon enough, Hedwig was back on his shoulder, chittering and rubbing her cheek against his ear, and they were off to their second lesson; Defence. It was what everyone was looking forwards to, the really glamorous stuff that Harry had been forbidden from seeing by the Dursleys. The route to get to it was convoluted and Harry was relying on the others to work out how to get there. At one point, the corridor they were walking through ended in a vertical shaft and they had to do an odd sort of flip to get their feet attached to the opposite wall. Without gravity, Harry had just been assigning his feet as 'down' and things had made sense, but now he had turned sideways and the world had twisted. What he had decided was a horizontal corridor moments before now looked like a vertical shaft, as if he was standing at the bottom of a well. As confusing as that was, though, he only had a moment before the rest of the class was sorted and the set off again.

The Defence classroom was bigger than the Comms one, with an open space in the middle, surrounded by desks. There was a weird skeleton mounted on what passed for a ceiling, quite far above their heads and vaulted like the loading bay, with large metal girders. There was a porthole or a window or whatever he was supposed to call the glass-filled opening in the hull, out of which Harry could see the stars. The teacher, Professor Quirrell, was standing at his desk as they came in, leaving pets at the back of the room again.

Harry shivered as he felt the strange and uncomfortable sensation of ice water dribbling down the back of his neck, replacing the warmth of his Interface. It passed after a moment but the goose bumps persisted for ages after they had all found seats. Draco stayed with them, this time, and sat next to Harry, eyeing Hermione with an unreadable expression.

Half the class didn't even notice when Quirrell started to teach, his voice was so quiet. The quite of listening children spread slowly, with confused looks and consternation. He was _stuttering_, Professors weren't supposed to _stutter_. Draco looked disgusted and Hermione devastated as the man made it through ten whole minutes without saying anything interesting at all. Harry glanced at their screens; neither had written down anything and he was reassured that he hadn't just missed the point.

Ten minutes after _that_, and Harry's quick flick through the defence textbook had revealed a whole pile of interesting programs, barriers and creatures that they were supposed to learn about. Quirrell was still talking about an encounter with a Saturnian kles'reck, whatever one of those was... He shook his head with a sigh and settled down to read about the ammoniosphere of Saturn. Soon he was completely absorbed in an account of a ship which had strayed too far into the viscous, ammonia rich layer of the gas giant and had been overrun by weird and dangerous creatures.

When the end of the lesson came, the class left with varying levels of disappointment and childish irritation. Most headed towards the spine and then the habitat ring; it was lunchtime, but Harry had his own directions and he followed a blinking green light that appeared and disappeared, leading him on down the twisty corridors. Ron, Neville and Hermione had been happy enough to let him go off on his own but Draco was more reluctant;

"He's my godfather!" the blonde whined, but only once the other children were out of earshot, Harry noted.

"And he's my _doctor_. Look, I'm giving up my lunch for this appointment, which probably means he's going to make me drink some kind of weird medicine or eat ration bars. Go get a proper lunch." Harry could see the reluctance all over the blondes face and paused; he was _too_ reluctant, for just missing out on seeing Snape, no matter how close the two were. "I'll tell him you want to see him, ok?" He gave Draco a long look, his eyes flicking between the blondes, trying to work out why he was nervous, jittery.

"Yeah, I mean, Yes, that would be acceptable." He nodded and looked away. "Go one, the light's leaving you behind."

"Have to find out how he does that..." Harry muttered, giving Draco's shoulder a pat before turning and launching himself down the corridor; not quite running, but skimming along quickly and recklessly without his magnets, "I'll see you in Hydroponics!" He yelled back with a grin, turning forwards again just in time to catch himself on a door handle and get his boots back on the deck.

"Don't break your neck on the way, Potter!" Draco called after him, and then, Harry was on his own, following a green light as it popped up on the screens next to doors and on the walls. It gave him a good chance to practice getting around in zero-g too; with the corridors practically empty, he could float along quickly, using gloved hands to cling to walls and push himself forwards faster than he could walk. Hedwig was ecstatic; she leapt and landed and galloped and twisted alongside him with incredible grace and precision. The whole experience was weird and free and felt like flying; something he had always dreamed about.

The light was accompanied by a quiet 'ping!' outside an bulkhead and didn't move on when he reached it; the screen had Professor Snape's and a woman's names on it. He quickly re-oriented himself so the writing was the right way up and pressed the call button.

"Enter, Potter! We don't have all day." Came Snape's voice through the intercom and the door opened a moment later. Beyond it was a white-painted room, with pods and tanks and things that _could_ have been beds and Snape, floating in the middle of it. He had his data pad up and was fiddling with something while screens floated around him, displaying strange things that Harry didn't recognise. He quickly asked Hedwig to stay on his shoulder since there was all manner of things she could make a mess of in here and she curled her tail around his neck happily enough.

"Good morning, sir." Harry said quietly, not really expecting a response; the man was busy. Instead, he made his way into the room, walking properly with his feet stuck to the deck this time. There was a woman moving about in the back of the room, boxes trailing along behind her as she stacked things in drawers. He watched for a moment, curious as to how they were following her, but Snape was dome with his data pad before he worked it out.

"Indeed; nothing has blown up, ignited or eaten anyone yet. Come," He said with the raised eyebrow and brisk manner that Harry had come to expect. Harry followed the man's gesture and floated awkwardly in front of a bed that there was no point lying down on; he'd float right off again. "You've been taking your supplements, as ordered," and wasn't that as close to a well done as he was likely to get. The look of approval on Snape's face was enough for him, though. "But I would still like to draw some blood as an indicator of how much work we have left to do, understand?"

"Yes, sir." Harry swallowed slightly at the idea of needles and vials and tests but this was the man who had carried him to bed, fed him, fixed him up and gelled him when he needed it. If that wasn't a good basis for trust, he didn't know what was. He gave the teacher a wry smile, telling him that he'd be ok and that the incident they'd had at the Leaky Airlock wouldn't be repeated.

"Very well, on the bed, then." Snape said, turning towards some of the many drawers lining the walls and pulling out things in sterile packets. Harry pulled himself to the foam mattress, stuffing his bag in the cubby underneath it. "The blanket will hold you in place, feel free too..." He made vague waving motions with his free hand without looking around, "Get comfortable."

Harry did so, pulling the blanket up from the end of the bed and curling up on his side with Hedwig keeping his throat warm. Once over his shoulders, the blanket tightened around him, pulling him snugly against the foam mattress in a way that felt similar to gravity, while being not the same at all. He wriggled and made sure he had an arm free and then lay still, watching Snape put things on a tray, to which they stuck, somehow. Given the faint metallic 'ting!', Harry figured it was probably simple magnetics and sure enough, the three little test tube-vial thingies had metal rings around them. He saw no evidence of a syringe, but there was a needle attached to a thin piece of tubing and a plastic valve that looked like a smaller version of the thing you blow air into a rubber ring through. There was something fluffy in a bag with metal beads on the drawstring and Harry fixed his eyes on that instead of the needle; it was floating away from the tray as Snape moved around, dragged along by the beads.

"Do not be afraid of the needle, Harry, I will ensure that you cannot feel it." Snape said in a quiet, confidential voice. Harry just huffed as gave him a lopsided grin.

"Am I that obvious?" He said as he presented his arm. The bed was at a weird angle; with no gravity, it was positioned in the most convenient way to Snape, rather than the way that would make sense to the gravity-accustomed. Snape placed a bead of gel on the inside of Harry's wrist that initially felt very cold but soon felt of nothing at all.

"Blown pupils, raised heart rate, pallor. Yes. You are that obvious." Snape said mercilessly. At least he was aware of it, Harry thought. "Kindly do not go into shock this time."

Harry shivered slightly as Snape plucked the needle off the tray and sensibly looked away. He couldn't feel what the man was doing but he knew the needle had gone in when Snape's hand left the back of his wrist and there was the sound of vials being clicked onto the valve. He just let himself hang limp and calm; the reason he'd been so frightened was gone and that, in turn, had caused his... episode? Fainting spell? _Stars_, he couldn't win; one sounded distinctly ominous and the other girly.

"I did have a bit of a ... thing, earlier. McGonagall caught me off guard, well, surprised me and I thought-" He said, tension returning to his shoulders, only to be interrupted by Snape's low, slow, story telling voice; the one he used when Harry's heart was getting too fast, the one he'd talked about his old pet toad in.

"Now is not the time, Potter. You didn't faint, and that is enough for now." There was a faint smell of alcohol and the sound tape makes peeling off the roll and Harry risked looking back; Snape was done, the needle gone and the vials of his blood out of sight. He had to admit that he was a bit curious about what his blood looked like but it wasn't like he hadn't seen it before, so he didn't ask.

The inside of his wrist was blue from the gel and there was a small piece of the fluffy stuff taped to it. The tape crinkled when he bent the joint, it didn't hurt, but Snape wrapped his long fingers around it and told him with a silent glare to be still. He obliged and settled back into the weird bed; it was incredibly comfortable and the pressure of the blanket against his legs was making him sleepy.

Fingers snapped beside his head and he automatically shifted to look at the sound. He was greeted by one of the squishy sports bottles he'd used back on Thrace. He took it automatically and was surprised to find the plastic warm.

"Lunch, Potter; drink." Snape said, turning away and floating to a machine with blinking lights and screens. Harry's first taste of the weird lunch was a surprise; it was sweet and tasted like bananas and chocolate. The texture was particularly thick and smooth and it sat nicely in his stomach once he'd swallowed.

"Now, explain what happened at breakfast."

Harry groaned slightly and curled down into the blanket.


	18. Cuttlefish

_AN: Enjoy! I do apologise to those who check regularly that these are slow in coming at the moment, but I haven't given up and I won't so keep checking. Onwards!_

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><p>Chapter 18: Cuttlefish.<p>

"It was this... chill, like an ice cube down the back of my neck." Harry said, not looking at his teacher. "I was just looking up at the teachers table, cause you had been doing your 'eat more, now,' face-"

"My _what_, precisely?" Snape demanded with a hint of outrage,

"Well, you know, when I don't finish lunch or something, you have this _look_ and it's all-" Harry muttered, popping and closing the lid of his lunch repeatedly until Snape cut him off;

"Yes, consider your observation noted. Now, continue; Fawkes reported that you were in pain."

"Uh, yeah. It was... when I looked at Quirrell, only I didn't know his name then, I got this burning, like a nettle sting on my forehead." He touched his scar, peering up at Snape, who nodded to show that he understood the gesture, "But then it went away again, right quick, honest. Haven't felt anything since."

"First of all; 'right quick' is not an appropriate use of the English language. Secondly, did it stop when you pressed your hand to it?" Snape asked as he pushed Harry's fringe back to examine the scar.

"um... I didn't notice, give me a minute..." Harry mumbled tipping his head back for Snape and closing his eyes. "No... I think it was when I turned; I sort of hunched up."

"Indeed, I was watching." He brushed his thumb across the star, feeling for warmth and irritation, but if there had been any, it was long gone. Nor did Harry move or twitch at all; "There is no residual pain or tingling?" He asked, absently pushing at Harry's fringe again in an utterly futile urge to neaten it.

"Nope. Well, I mean the middle bit's always a bit... weird, but it's back to how it always is." Harry replied opening his left eye and squinting up at the teacher, "'s just numb, and it always feels, I dunno, warmer, than it should." He said in response to Snape's questioning eyebrow.

"Hmph. Well, it _is_ a burn scar; the nerves may have grown back strangely. It would not be the first time someone's scar has felt odd." Snape said as he moved away. "Drink."

"Draco wanted to come with me. Can he? Next time, I mean." Harry asked between mouthfuls. Snape peered at him out of the corner of his eye, facing the machine that was analysing Harry's blood. After a long moment he turned back to the console;

"That is your choice; he is my godson, I find him tolerable enough. The question, rather, is whether or not you mind a Malfoy knowing your weaknesses."

Harry was taken aback; "What do you mean? Is he some sort of threat?" he asked incredulously, remembering the quavering uncertainty in the boys voice. But then... his received opinions on Planet-born were worrying.

"Draco? No, he is a petulant brat, prickly but harmless; it is his father that poses some danger. He was most certainly a Death Eater, a follower of the Dark Lord." Snape had grown still, no longer fiddling with the equipment and standing with his back to Harry' his head bent slightly.

"Then he's in prison, or something? Like that Lestrange person." Harry said, confused. Snape turned suddenly and Harry was pinned to the bed by his stare.

"Where did you hear that name?" He growled and Harry trembled for a moment before he was able to make himself relax; this was _Snape_, not his uncle.

"In some old newsfeeds, it was silly that I knew less than random people on the street about my own history." He said, taking a long drink of his lunch and trying to keep himself calm. Whether he noticed Harry's distress or not, Snape seemed to calm down himself and came to stand beside Harry, putting a warm hand on his shoulder.

"Of course, I apologise for my reaction..." the expression on his face was still dark and wrathful and Harry promised himself that he would never do _anything_ to get that look directed at him.

"That's alright sir, he must have been a very evil person." He said, tentatively touching Snape's hand and looking up at him with wide, slightly worried eyes.

"She. Bellatrix Lestrange. Yes, she was. I had some contact with the Dark Lords forces; it was never a pleasant experience. I am sorry for scaring you, Harry." He was visibly getting a hold of himself again and Harry watched, impressed. "Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater, but he remained free after the Dark Lord fell; he holds great influence with the Ministry and is very persuasive. Draco... he has been taught the mannerisms and beliefs of the darker side of Sky-Born society, I must admit to being surprised you were willing to put up with that."

Harry nodded and curled in on himself slightly to think. "He, um... I don't think he likes his dad very much... I told him that I didn't see how Hermione could be a threat and that we must have all been planet-born at some point. He was pretty quiet about it after that."

Snape was looking at him with a very intense type of concentration and Harry was relieved when his eyes stopped pinning him to the bed, "Well, we shall see if his politics change. No doubt he and Weasley will butt heads frequently; I have no idea what Fawkes was thinking when he put you all together." He turned away and went back to the machine analysing Harry's blood, using a gesture to move the results from the device's screen to his tablet.

Harry was starting to get fidgety, thinking about Draco and Ron and the three boys he didn't know very well, and Neville with his toad. He kept on sucking down his lunch; it was nearly gone by then, and absently watched Snape flicking through the results. As the man returned to the bed, his boots clicking on the floor in a way that was now immensely familiar and that he had not expected to hear in zero-g, Harry sat up, sort of, leaving his legs tucked into the blanket so he wouldn't float away and slurping down the last of his banana protein shake thingy.

"Nothing surprising, low blood count and haemoglobin levels, and a slightly elevated white count." Snape paused with a bit of a smirk; "You seem to be brewing a cold. Do be sure to give it to all your little friends."

Harry groaned, memories of a stuffy head and a sore nose filling him with good natured dread. "Can't you, I don't know, give me a shot or something?"

"Certainly not! Its 'Firstie Flu'; meeting new people inevitably brings you into contact with viruses you have yet to develop immunity to. It will serve your system well to develop that immunity on its own." Snape took back the empty bottle and sent it sailing into the bin, "I assure you, a great many of your peers will be experiencing something similar; keep taking your supplements and take one of the painkillers in your first aid box if you get achy; you'll be fine."

Harry grumbled and turned to Hedwig, who was asleep on his shoulder, giving her a brief snuggle. "Well then, I'll just have to spread it about as revenge then, wont I? Yes, I will." He mumbled into her fur, getting a soft trill in return.

"Indeed, consider it an early assignment for Tactics. Biological warfare for dunderheads." Snape was saying as he shooed Harry off the bed and pushed him gently to the floor so he could get his boots on the deck.

"What's Tactics? You make it sound like a lesson." Harry asked, pulling at his rumpled uniform ineffectually.

"It is, one you will, in all likelihood, join me for in your fourth year. For now, you are very nearly late. Go." Harry squeaked slightly and wished he had invested in a watch, before scurrying to the door.

"I'll tell Draco you said 'hi', then?" He said, pausing briefly to look back.

"If you wish; he won't believe you, however." Snape called after him without even turning around. Harry snorted in amusement and was off, Hedwig following closely as they made their way to the hydroponics bay.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry had to rush to make it to hydroponics in time so when he got there, most of his classmates were already getting changed. The water-lock was a good four times bigger than the one on the Thrace and had lockers on all four walls, two of which would have been called a floor or ceiling in any other circumstance. He pulled himself to an empty locker near a distinctive head of blonde hair and got to unbuttoning his uniform. He paused for a second when he realised that there were _girls_ getting changed too, before politely, if a little fixedly, staring at his locker. Once he was properly changed, almost everyone had finished and the teacher was calling for them;

"Right, gather round! Yes, yes, boots off, Longbottom." She was saying. Harry made sure his locker was properly closed so his uniform wouldn't get wet and joined the crowd that was slowly rearranging itself so everyone was treating the same way as up. For a moment, Harry was confronted with Ron's feet, but he managed to right himself with a little help and float in the right direction.

"Did you remember to seal your lockers? Good. Now, I am Professor Sprout, and welcome to Hydroponics! It's this bay, just beyond this bulkhead, that keeps us all alive, so look sharp. Firstly, we'll be having a little talk on how to use your 'breathers. You there, what's your name, dear?"

"Patil, miss." Said a girl Harry couldn't see; Draco's head was in the way.

"Miss Patil, what can you tell me about rebreathers?" asked Sprout kindly,

"Well... they're for letting you breath under water, or in gel, um.."

"Quite right, now-" She launched into the lesson, while the students around him examined their breathers with varying levels of familiarity. Ron's, Harry noted with a touch of trepidation, had a crack in the casing that had been melted and re-sealed. Draco's looked brand new and shiny, and Harry caught the disdainful look on his face a moment too late;

"Not enough money for a breather, Weasley? What is that, second hand? Thir-" Draco sneered, cut off by Harry's elbow and a harsh glare. Ron was furious but couldn't do anything, since Harry's elbow jab had pushed him away from Draco, and into Ron, tangling them slightly.

"Right then, breathers on, everyone! That's it dearie; check it with a tug." Sprout was saying and the three boys simmered down. Harry fitted the mask over his nose and mouth with swift familiarity and checked the settings on the module; water, atmospheric and 21%, respectively. The air in the mask was slightly cooler than that of the water-lock and he took a deep breath to check the flow, rather enjoying the clear, cool air.

"Right now, one at a time. That's fine, Longbottom. And you are?" Sprout checked each and every one of their rebreathers; tugging on the mask, checking the fit, the settings, before she had them order their pets to the back of the waterlock and let them through.

As the thick doors hissed open, Harry stared; the water hung in front of him, barely disturbed by the smooth metal gliding past and rippling gently. It shimmered with light and made the waterlock feel dark in comparison as waves of sunlight, bent by the surface before them, rippled over their toes.

"One at a time now, try not to kick until you're well into the water, there's a good boy." Sprout told the first to go. The brown haired eleven year old obviously knew what he was doing; he crouched, holding on to a bar, like a handle, that ran around the edge of the water and planting his feet on either side of his hand. He levered himself forward and _pushed_, sliding into the water and sending ripples through the surface that, when they hit the edge of the bulkhead, burst up into little droplets that floated strangely through the air, perfectly spherical. His distorted form cut through the water until he was well away from the surface and then he started swimming.

Harry watched as student after student slipped through the surface, some with more grace than others; Draco hardly made a ripple, while Hermione didn't push hard enough and made a big splash when she swam the rest of the way. The waterlock was getting more and more waterlogged and streams of bubbles drifted with the currents made by the hydroponics class; without gravity to sort out water from air, the two were mixing. Hedwig loved it; the water droplets coalesced if they touched and she had found a big one to play with. He watched her for a second before turning to take hold of the bar and make his own way. He was already rather wet from the flying drops, which clung to you if you touched them.

He curled his toes around the bar carefully, pushing against it but stopping himself from moving with his hand, he pushed and pushed until his body felt like an elastic band, like Ron had described, and then simply let go. He tucked his arms in to his sides, pointed his toes and went through the water like a diver. The water roared in his ears, but it wasn't like a splash in gravity; this was deeper and quieter, a rumbling rather than a hiss.

He drifted to a stop well clear of the surface and twisted to swim over to Draco, staring around the bay in wonder. It was big; much bigger than the Thrace's, and so high that the plants growing around them were the size of trees. Far, far over head was the sun, brighter and larger than it was back planet-side, its light filtering through the water and being broken into shards by iridescent air bubbles that trailed from people's clothes and hair.

The enormous strands of kelp-like Carexin practically glowed and beyond them, the water, and the sun, were the stars; in a bright, _glorious _spread, tinted royal blue by the water. It was like looking up at the sky, if the sky had fish, instead of birds. Enormous tuna, six feet long, were swimming over head in a loose shoal, while thousands of small, silver or blue or yellow and black, or green and grey or yellow striped fish twisted and swam through the fronds and amongst the stems of the Carexin. On the bay floor, between the mounds of Carexin roots were beds and beds of plants and corals, protected from the brightest of the sun and bathed in greenish yellow light. Swarming with fish and other things Harry didn't know the names of, things with lots of legs, and crabs and lobsters and...

"Right then, come along! We're in sector Three today, this way," Professor Sprout called, her voice muffled but clear enough. A hand on Harry's elbow made him start and he looked around at his friends; Neville, Ron, Draco and even Hermione. He grinned a brilliant, sunlit, ecstatic smile and watched as each one burst into an equal grin. Their hair floated around them, the net bags containing their data pads bumped against their hips and they couldn't help themselves. Even the three Sky-Born couldn't restrain themselves in this beautiful, golden, shimmering place.

They followed their teacher out of the sunlit clearing around the waterlock and into the green shade of the forest, losing sight of the really big fish overhead and plunging into a world of anemones and fish that flitted about in shafts of light like sleek, wet, butterflies.

The swim wasn't far and they soon came to another clearing with a large glass structure in, which was keeping the fish out of what looked only vaguely like a classroom. There weren't any desks or benches, but there was a whiteboard and racks of trays and lots of tiny seedlings. Professor Sprout ushered them into the glass room quickly, checking them each to make sure they weren't bringing a fish in with them and taking a register.

It was a nice lesson, Harry had decided by the end; there was so much sunlight and the tiny little plants were so delicate. He had worked between Draco and Hermione, and the blonde hadn't been mean or so much as looked wrong at Hermione, which was reassuring. Neville talked more than he had at dinner and breakfast combined, which wasn't really saying much, but there you have it.

Having re-rooted his entire tray of baby kelps, more than enough to get the hang of it, Harry drifted over to the racks to put the tray away. As he clipped it in he spotted them; tens of tiny, almost transparent little bodies, no bigger than his thumbnail, with big black eyes and a thin pattern of golden brown spots up and down their sides. Their faces were little bundles of tentacles, all gathered together and drooping down in front of them as they drifted slowly around their little enclosure.

"Cuttlefish, Mr Potter, only babies for now. Once they're bigger, they'll be able to change the colour of their skins, fascinating little creatures." Sprout said as she swam past behind him and patted his shoulder. They really were pretty cool... as he looked closer and the nose of his mask bumped against the Perspex he gave one a start and it jetted backwards, leaving a trail of purplish black ink behind it. He grinned into his mask and watched the tiny little thing go and hide in the weed.

"I'm just looking after them until Triton has a moment. Run along now, Potter, with the others." Sprout told him and he hurriedly swam to join the other first years as they made for the waterlock. It felt like further than it had on the way out; the tall fronds of Carexin were all the same and he was beginning to feel the heaviness in his limbs that he had painstakingly learned to recognise as the consequences of doing too much. It wore down his good mood steadily and he worried slightly about going back to the habitat ring, he wasn't sure if he would make the walk back to his dorm... He hadn't needed carrying in over a week but knowing his luck... he grouched as he followed Draco dazedly; stupid Dursleys and their stupid cupboard-under-the-stairs. Aunt Petunia hadn't trusted him to go out the front on his own and what was a little boy to do, alone in the back garden except weed? He rubbed his thumb unthinkingly over the rough patch of skin on his forefinger, he had always been so tired after the fortnightly weeding; he supposed it made sense now.

He _had_ liked Professor Sprout's lesson though; there hadn't been any soil to get all over him, for one. The little seedlings were planted in blocks of solid but squishy gel instead, and the fish had never stopped their endless swimming over head.

His thoughts faded away as he settled into the five minute swim that would take them to the waterlock. Once there and the water had been blown back into vents on the bulkhead, he got dressed in a daze, greeting Hedwig quietly. Any embarrassment he might have had at getting dry and dressed in the presence of girls was ameliorated by the fact that he barely noticed their existence.

"Look at you, Potter, honestly... come on," He vaguely heard Draco muttering as his damp conduction shirt and shorts were wrapped in a towel and bundled into his bag for him. He concentrated on the buttons on his uniform that refused to be done up, instead. The dry fabric was wonderfully warm against his skin and the briefly worried that he shouldn't have been cold before the thought got lost. "I knew I should have come with you," His hands were batted away from the front of his uniform and he absently rubbed his eyes with them instead.

Later, he would be embarrassed, but for now he barely noticed as Draco subtly directed attention away from him. The feeling of Poseidon leaning over him was steadily increasing; the ships concern and attention looming. He allowed the AI access to his Interface when it asked, getting a reassuring feeling of warmth against the back of his neck in return. There was a brief flash of soft gold and red before Draco was pulling him through the open bulkhead and into the corridor.

"...like that, Granger. Perhaps you aren't hopeless after all." When Draco pressed his magnetic gloves into his hands, Harry put them on automatically, the wrist straps pulling comfortably tight.

"Stuff it, _Malfoy,_" Ron's voice, Harry looked 'round and was relieved that the red-head didn't look like he might hit someone; he gave him a hazy smile.

"Move it, people, we have Briefing in ten minutes!" Draco called out as their classmates dawdled around the waterlock. Some glared at him, others checked watched and data pads, but they all hurried off, nonetheless, Draco helping Harry along as unobtrusively as possible. As they approached the central spine, the corridors became more crowded and the group began to walk properly on the designated 'floor', to avoid bumping heads with anyone. Under the muffling effects of the crowd, Draco put his hand to his ear; forefinger touching his Interface just below and behind it.

"Draco Malfoy requesting Comms to Senior Medical Officer Snape," he said under his breath and Harry sighed;

"Draco, what are you doing? I'm _fine_." He hissed, trying to pull himself together. The blonde looked at him sceptically and let go of his Interface for a moment,

"Forgive me, Potter, but _you_ are not the one who had to watch you half-suffocate under the weight your own chest." He said in an angry, suppressing tone, "We're _crew_, Harry, I don't know what some idiotic mud-foot has told you but now, _your_ problems are _ours_. We have to look after each other and it's not a _choice;_ have a little dignity and buck up or shut up."

Harry chose the latter, shocked and floating loosely in space as students made their way past them obliviously. He noticed that Draco was holding him steady with a hand on the strap of his bag while Ron was nearby, looking worried. He swallowed heavily; it was one thing that Snape was... had... that he helped, but this was a whole other ball game.

"Uncle Severus! I- yes. Requesting recommendation, sir." Draco gave him an eagle eye sideways. "Pale, tremors, oh, and he's slow, sir, like he's under gel."

Harry bristled slightly, shoving his hands in his pockets; he felt fine, honestly. This was manageable and he felt a little more cogent for having floated in space without doing much for a while; he'd make it to his bed just fine, thank-you-very-much... might take him a while though, what with Draco being all interfering.

"Yes sir, we'll meet him there. Thank you. Draco out." The blonde took his hand away from his interface and veritably stalked down the deck; Harry was impressed, he hadn't known that was possible in zero-g.

"Come along, Potter; we've got debrief and then _you_ are going to bed." He grumbled, stomping off down the corridor, leaving Ron and Harry in his wake and gesturing imperiously for them to follow. The red-head grumbled and growled and followed anyway but Harry couldn't hope to keep up on his own so he stubbornly crossed his arms and legs and let Ron pull him along.

"What did he tell you? I'm fine! Look, yes I get tired quickly but really, I'll be better soon, you don't have to... to _fuss!_" He hissed at the back of a blonde head, "And who are we meeting anyway? Feeling like humiliating me in front of the rest of the year?" He grouched, his heart not in it.

"You are doing quite enough of that on your own, Potter; look around you." Draco said with another imperious gesture; they had reached the Habitat ring's hub without him really noticing and the lifts were busy with students headed back to the ring after lessons. Truly, Harry wasn't really bothered; he was just being lazy, to all appearances, but it wouldn't be possible to hide his condition once they were gravity-side. He huffed a slow sigh and set his feet back on the desk and got his legs moving again.

"I guess so. The question stands though." He pointed out as they shuffled into a lift, his two friends on either side.

Draco humphed delicately; "Fawkes. He is technically in charge of first years and he is more that capable of hauling your scrawny little body home." That word still held a tiny fission of panic for Harry, but the thought clashed with how safe Fawkes had made him feel the night before and dissipated as he felt the lift begin to move.

"Fair enough, I suppose. Not that I'll need it, you understand?" He muttered making a point to lock his knees against the returning illusion of gravity as the lift spun up to ring speed. A moment later the doors slid open and their fellow passengers left them behind. Harry tried to follow them immediately but the return of gravity had all his blood rushing to the general vicinity of his knees and he swayed.

"9.8 meters per second squared, Harry, give it a moment." Draco muttered back even as he stood up a little straighter for the Pilot.

"Messirs Malfoy, Weasley, Potter. And Severus was worried you would not get along..." Came the Pilot's rather musical voice once the other, mostly much older, students had gone their ways. "Thank you for your astute observations, Mr Malfoy. Five points."

Draco _beamed_, Harry could feel it and he sighed as he shook off the mild dizzy spell. He disengaged the magnets on his boots and gave Fawkes a large, if a little wry, smile as he stepped into the corridor. Ron fell in beside him; he was being very quiet, Harry thought, and Fawkes lead him by a warm hand to the shoulder, while Draco marched along behind, looking rather self important.


	19. Into a new term

_AN: Hello! Back for an update before I rush off to the next busy patch. To anyone that has read my other story 'Silence'; you'll be pleased to hear that the prequel, the Price of Sanity is coming along a treat and will start posting in the next couple of months. Look forwards to it!_

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><p>Chapter 19: Into a new term.<p>

Their briefing was, as the name suggested, brief. Fawkes ran them through what was expected of first years, which Harry noted was rather different to how school had been, and then what was expected of their teachers. After that, he apologised for the fact that they had had lessons on their first day aboard;

"Term begins on the first weekday of September; that is a rule that has not been bent in many years and one of only a few concessions to the Monday-to-Sunday system. I know we would all prefer it if the 1st was a Saturday! You may notice that weekends and holidays are more flexible than you may be used to, but a working week will never last longer than six days; keep an eye on your timetable. Planet-raised; your Saturdays and Sundays are not scared anymore." He was saying, leaning on a podium in front of the group, who were sitting comfortably in sofas and on beanbags around the room. Harry was snuggled down on a crowded sofa, between Ron and a girl whose name he couldn't remember, watching the red-feathered Pilot through sleepy eyes.

"Flight classes don't start until the day _after_ tomorrow, so I'll be taking you to the zero-gym in that slot tomorrow to touch up your ability to get around out of the Ring. In the mean time, look after each other! Lots of you have experience with magnetic travel and I fully expect you to help those who haven't, like you did this morning. Five points to Zacharias, on that note, for keeping a level head."

The boy who blushed and grinned in response to that was sitting near the front, but off to the side, in an armchair. Harry blinked slowly and fixed his name to his face.

"Finally, for those who have been planet-side within the past three months, vaccinations will be-"

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Later, after dinner, in the comfortable gloom of their dorm room, Harry sought out Draco in the privacy of his cubby. The other boys were either asleep or otherwise holed up in their beds, but Harry had something he had to ask Draco, so there he was.

The blonde was still up, sitting at his desk with his bare toes wriggling in the carpet idly, making the touch-responsive luminescence shimmer. His data pad was sending a soft glow over his features too, as the puttered, doing something Harry couldn't identify. After a long moment of dithering on the threshold, Harry shuffled forwards and the light caught Draco's eye.

"Harry, hello," He said with a faint frown, "I thought you'd be asleep by now."

The Sky-born swung his chair around and made a small, unconscious gesture, which Harry obeyed, coming into his space properly and sitting on the bed. "Yes, well, some of us had a mid-afternoon nap." He said with a flitting smile which was soon displaced by the nervous look he had arrived with. He fidgeted for a moment when Draco made no verbal reply before speaking in a rush; "Did you mean it?"

Draco turned to him fully, a serious expression on his child's face, but Harry gabbled on nervously. "I mean, we're not really a crew yet, not even properly cadets until Wednesday, and your dad, and Professor Snape said-"

"Harry?" Draco cut in with a very firm tone of voice, shutting him right up. "I've decided that yes, you are part of my crew. Severus has put you under his protection and you've... said things that make me think. You think about... important things, which I've never thought of before." He paused and ran a hand through his previously immaculate hair. "My Father is... not a nice man."

Harry stayed quiet during the pauses as Draco spoke; the look on his face was so intense that he knew a lot was going on in his roommate's head. "What you said on the Expressed shocked me, and then Pilot had some wise words too. I made a decision and I intend to stick to it. So yes, I meant it."

Harry let out a long breath, rolling what Snape had said about Malfoy's over in his mind before nodding to himself; "Alright." He said quietly, not really for Draco's ears. "Ok," He said more loudly, looking up. "You know when I said I was anaemic? Well, that's not quite the whole... thing..." He made a nebulous gesture and began to explain what Draco would have learned if he had gone to the Infirmary with him earlier that day.

The blondes face was grave, perhaps a little frightened, then grew very serious. "Right." He said, staring at his knees and the pale fists that had rested there, getting progressively tighter as Harry spoke. "Yeah. Fawkes said a few things, you know when he did that..." he gestured to his Interface, still attached to his neck. "Thing, yesterday. Told me to be brave and cleverer. I've never been that brave, you see?"

Harry didn't know what to say to that, and Draco's pause was sort of... pending, so he waited to the other shoe to drop while Draco fiddled with the crease of his slacks.

"'My dad' indeed. I, um, he's political; if you know what that means... he wasn't on your parents side during the... well, the war. He says that he was forced to do all that... stuff, but then he tells me that planet-born are the worst of the worst, that they'll bring down our ships and weaken us." He paused and swallowed hard, his hands going limp on his knees. "So I think he lied. I think he's a bad man, I think he's k-killed people and he isn't sorry. I think he did all those things that no one mentions."

Harry could see the fear on Draco's face, how his own father made him _afraid_ and that, to him, was worse than not having parents at all. Harry had Snape, at least, and the Thrace, but _Draco_ would have to go home to _that_. If Harry had to go back to the Dursleys... well. There was something wild in it too, his expression, something between fear and doing the right thing anyway.

"So he would be angry at you, for being friends with me?"

"Yes. But I don't care, Harry. I'm going to make a statement to the Sky." Draco was grinning a bit now, his eyes flicking from Harry to his data pad, to Harry's hands, like something was running through his head at speed. "And if Father says anything, well of _course _I'm cultivating the Malfoy image, the one that he damaged so badly, well I won't say that of course, but, he'll think it,"

"_Braver and cleverer than anyone else._" Harry quoted in a quiet whisper, almost to himself, staring at his own knees, before his eyes flicked back up to Draco, who, continued on in his newfound courage, plans rattling off as fast as he could talk. Harry grinned and hissed at him as his voice rose to carrying volume; "Oi, you'll wake the others up! Calm _down._" The blonde subsided and returned his grin, a clarity and spark in his eyes that Harry hadn't yet seen. It was like... mischief, and Harry's smile grew.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The following morning was much like the first, as many to come would be, and Harry and the others met up with the girls from the room opposite on their way to breakfast, quite accidentally. Harry ended up sitting next to a quiet girl called Lavender who made eyes at his scar while Ron snorted with laughter at him from across the table.

Their first lesson was Navigation, which Harry discovered, much to his dismay, consisted of vast quantities of maths, interspersed with astronomy and geometry. He was grateful for the holographic projector in his data pad as they were taught about the relationship between distance, speed, time and acceleration. Fortunately, it wasn't complicated, but the units were new to him; how do you times a second by itself? And what did a second-per-second look like when it was at home? Why was gravity measured in acceleration?

Hermione seemed to be having no trouble; her hand was in the air the moment the teacher asked anything. Vector was trying to pick other people as well, but that hand kept going up with such vigour that Harry thought she might launch herself out of her seat.

Most of his classmates were with him though, to his relief. Draco seemed familiar with this stuff, but even he was making an effort to do the calculations, while Ron looked decidedly confused and out of his depth.

After that was Programming with a tiny little professor. The lesson was amazing; Flitwick had them erecting barriers, solid and permeable, in different sizes. But, it was soured a bit by the squeak of excitement and the way Flitwick set himself floating off in zero-g on reading out Harry's name.

One of the boys from another dorm, Seamus, managed to overload his work and it sparked in his face, making them all jump, and then laugh at the look of shock on his face. He wasn't the last to generate sparks, though.

"No, no, the spin has to be the same as the mass-" Hermione was saying to Ron; Harry really didn't think they should sit next to each other, Ron was bristling already.

"Fine!" the red-head snapped. Harry had been waiting for it, but the anger in his tone did make him shift away slightly. "You do it then, if you're so clever!"

Whether Hermione just missed the nasty tone or was doing a stellar job of ignoring it, she looked smug rather than chastened, "Referent alpha paucent." She said crisply and the barrier they were aiming for at the moment popped into being above her desk, where her eyes were fixed. It was disk shaped, apparently square was harder, because of the corners, green and about the size of his hand. She, pride tangible, pushed a finger against the disk; it stayed completely still, despite the extra force.

Ron huffed and didn't speak to her for the rest of the lesson.

In contrast, Draco leapt into a discussion about how she was managing the power input to the magnetic maintenance of the spin that caused the-... Harry phased out, staring at his barrier instead and just _doing_ it. It was about balance, really, if he 'held' it too tightly it would disintegrate and the air molecules they were binding together would rush in all directions, sometimes dramatically. If he held it too loosely, it would stutter and fizz out of existence when touched. A nudge in one direction and... was it slightly more blue? That was new. He tilted his head to one side and pushed, the disk got progressively less yellow until he lost concentration on the field and it lost its shape, becoming a blue cloud, held in the lines of the unconstrained magnetic field.

"Very good, Mr Potter. Five points." Came a squeaky voice from just over his shoulder. He looked around with a smile and thanked the little professor. Fawkes had explained the points thing at the end of their briefing the day before; it wasn't just a matter of pride, it determined your ranking at the beginning of fourth year. Hermione also managed to get points for her solid barrier, which set Draco off into making another with a rather competitive zeal.

It didn't escape Harry's notice that the students Draco had sat with in Comms where looking at him strangely, maybe even angrily. There was a tension to Draco's shoulders too; he had obviously noticed...

Harry frowned as he turned back to his work, if people were going to be horrible to Draco for talking to a planet-born, then they were not the sort of people he wanted to be near. Though, Draco hadn't been kind himself, on the Express... He huffed to himself and proceeded to go nearly cross-eyed in trying to make his barrier blue again.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Severus had lessons of his own, but once he had sent his seventh year Tactics class off to lunch, he had the rest of the day free and drifted thoughtfully into the personal lab behind his classroom. It was as chaotic as his lab on the Thrace, but more tailored; his time aboard the Poseidon was mostly spent generating the medications and devices needed in the Infirmary. Currently, a vat bolted to his central bench was growing a bone-brace; Madam Pomfrey got through them at a ridiculous rate once flight training got started and they were always best fresh.

Navigating the maze of cables, racks and benches was second nature and he had left himself enough hand holds that he needn't bother with his magnetic boots. Soon he was frowning at a spinning disk that was due to come to a halt in three... two... The two sample vials became visible as the spinning slowed to a gentle stop. Harry's blood had settled out into layers in one, while the other appeared unchanged due to the lyses, cell-bursting chemicals, he had added. It was a standard test set; the white layer of settled blood would be used for a genetic analysis and he would analyse the plasma for hormone activity while the burst cells, now that the mitochondrial membranes had been spun out of solution would be used to check protein and hence enzyme function.

He had his suspicions that Harry's poor health was more than malnutrition and lack of exercise. There was no use broadcasting that to the whole ship, however, and Harry would be told if and when he found anything suspicious; for now, he was simply a paranoid veteran with a suspicious mind.

With great care he retrieved the vials and decanted the layered samples using a Gilson pipette, one for immunoflourescence imaging, one for protein sequencing... and so on.

He worked straight through lunch, but once the various reactions, circuits and gels were set up, there was little to do. Fawkes had a standing request out for assistance in zero-g training, however, as he had double the usual compliment of students and would welcome his aid. Classes were generally half the year; at most, twenty one students. Supplementary classes were a little more flexible as there weren't timetabled on a seven-day cycle and Fawkes had decided to take the entirety of Harry's year group, a round forty this year, all at once. The fact that both Harry and his Godson were in the class, one that inevitably involved a certain risk, had nothing to do with his decision.

Between the Pilot and Hooch, it wasn't a terrible teacher-student ratio, but zero-g training was always chaotic and Snape made his way to the large, padded bay that was used as a zero-gym. He stood at the hatch, firmly attached to the metal bulkhead, and observed the group while they got organised. All the students were lined up in a raggedy two ranks, some standing normally, others crouched more comfortably with one hand to the strange floor. It was a thick layer of foam with metal plates just beneath the surface, rather like snake scales, to provide the magnetic grip necessary. The need for padding would be obvious soon enough and, if they were lucky, would prevent the broken bones so common in first term. He had to confess to being concerned for Harry in that respect, but he would not insulate the boy on a chance. He would, however check the elbow and knee pads they were all wearing, personally. Their helmets too; Draco had his own, but Harry's looked distinctly too big for him. Fawkes had spotted him by that point and Snape raised an eyebrow at him in question.

"Lieutenant-Colonel Snape! Your assistance would be much appreciated," He said, the feathers on the back of his head rising slightly in what Severus new to be an unconscious gesture rather like a smile.

"Pilot. With luck, these dunderheads will not need my true skills." He grumbled as he pushed off and drifted to his fellow teachers. "Hooch." He said with a nod to the grey haired coach. Their relationship was a tense one; no other teacher sent Madam Pomfrey quite as many students as Hooch. He turned to the first years with an assessing eye; many were still fiddling with the bindings on their protective gear. The rantin leather was stiff and could be uncomfortable, but the pads prevented the bite of the metal scales from bruising vulnerable knees and elbows too badly during a bad landing.

"Right, Rank, split!" Fawkes projected over the low chatter, the pupils hushed each other, while trying to ask what the command meant, "Front, Forwards a pace, rear, backwards one! Go!" They obeyed quickly enough and only two failed to remain stuck to the deck. They were soon pulled back by their classmates, however. "Professor, if you would take the back row?" Fawkes asked him more quietly; he nodded and stalked off without a word, rounding the end of the first row and moving to check over the back's equipment. He tugged on straps and shook helmets until he was sure that nothing would come loose of its own accord. None of these children had yet been subjected to his class and they were not entirely sure how to react to his brisk manner.

Draco and Harry, on the other hand, whispered to the classmates to either side of them, quite comfortable with his ever-approaching and slightly sinister figure. He was correct; Harry's helmet was too big. As he shook it, it slipped around on Harry's head, rather than staying firm; better than useless, but not as effective as it could be. He opened the grips, padded flats that attached to the Interface and secured the helmet, protecting the neck, and pulled the helmet off.

"Lieutenant-Colonel?" Harry asked, looking up at him curiously,

"My official rank; Professor to cadets such as yourself. Too large. Your helmet should not move compared to your skull. Observe." He did the same to Draco's helmet, for a second time, to the blonde's irritation; pressing a palm flat to the top of the helmet, he twisted and pushed. Draco resisted the movement, nodding and shaking his head only slightly in response to the force while the helmet remained firmly in place, protecting his skull, temples and neck.

"Right, I see what you mean, sir." Harry said, glancing back at the racks were they had picked up their protective gear, ready to go and fetch a replacement. Severus gestured for him to stay put and, reaching a hand into the belly of the helmet, adjusted it. The plates making up its surface rose slightly, their front edges sliding underneath the back edge of the next plate, and the whole construction contracted slightly.

"Cool..." Harry muttered quietly as he took it back and slid it comfortably over his excessively messy hair. Severus did the shake test again, gave him a very small, very one-sided smirk as his head bobbed and then moved on. This year's Weasley cowered from him; the stories much have reached home, he thought. He was a gangly, rather tall boy, particularly next to Harry and even made Draco look short.

By the time he reached the end of the row, three girls, one of the absurdly bushy-haired later, Fawkes was ready to begin. Severus and Hooch stepped away at his gesture and watched.

"We will be showing you how to adjust and fit your own equipment at a later date, however for now you will _always_ have it checked by myself or my colleagues, am I clear on that?" The pilot said, loud enough to make a point and elicit a verbal reply. "Good! Now, get to the red circle."

There was a lot of head turning amongst the students as they wondered what he meant, but they soon cottoned on; there was a large disk of red light projected on the deck 'above' their heads.

Chaos rightly ensued.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Harry and Ron shared a glance, then he and Draco. The blonde just raised an eyebrow at him with a supercilious smirk and then was just... gone.

"Oi! Yer poncy git!" Ron yelled and followed; launching himself into space. Harry followed them with his eyes for now as they headed, helmet-first for the opposite deck. Others were following with varying degrees of confidence and speed; one boy from the dorm next to them, Theo? Did a hand stand and pushed himself off the deck with his hands so he would land feet first. Draco was managing to turn in mid-air, angling his body to catch the air.

"Harry, can, can we go that way?" Came Hermione's voice, sounding rather small and overwhelmed. He looked in the direction she was pointing; a couple of students were swarming across the deck and up the padded walls, rather than make the great leap-of-faith. He considered it for a minute; she really did look scared, but he really wanted to jump...

"Hey, Draco, Ron!" He craned his head back; his friend were arguing over something; possibly a continuation of their Quidditch argument at lunch. He waved when they looked 'up' at him, "Catch!"

He turned to Hermione with a wild, mad idea, kneeling down on one knee so one foot was flat on the deck, the other held on my just the top-grip. He pulled Hermione by the hand so she stood in front of him, then put her hand on his shoulder and linked his hands to make a foot rest. "In at the deep end, alright?"

"You're mad. You're completely mad, Harry!" She said with wide eyes, but she detached one of her boots and put it in the cradle of his hands anyway.

"I think I might be. READY, DRACO?" He yelled, getting an affirmative back, "On 'one', ok? Three, two, one!" He pushed off, sending her up ahead and then letting his magnets go at the last moment so that he followed half a meter behind. It really was like flying, touching nothing, nothing to get in his way...

Hermione was going to botch the landing completely; she would have no matter what he'd done, but Ron and Draco reached out to her and she gripped their hands tightly, breathing fast and scared. Harry twisted so his chest and arms slowed him down, pulling his legs in so they swung 'round and then set them sweetly on the deck, bending them to cushion the impact. His face was a sight to see; he was utterly ecstatic, beyond thrilled by the rush and grinning like the loon Hermione thought he was.

"Smooth, Harry. I _am_ impressed." Draco commented, not looking at him or the wild-eyed planet-born next to him. Harry followed his gaze to where Snape and the other teachers were helping the last of the class with their take-offs. Those who had gone the long way were already with them, it was just the afraid left.

"Thanks." Harry replied, looking eager for the next target.


	20. Flight

_AN: The first exam of the end of my degree is tomorrow, but this chapter is complete and there's nothing like reviews to improve my mood, so, here you are! _

Chapter 20: Flight

Severus had to confess to a feeling of smugness and vague glee when he saw what fine company Draco had made; a Weasley, and Potter, and not least, a 'mudfoot'. Luck to him if Harry ever heard Draco say that, Severus suspected that, though forgiveness would be swift, Harry's vengeance would be too. The Granger girl looked shaken but there was a thrilled exhilaration there too, brightness that the young fools too proud and too afraid to leap lacked utterly. He heaved an irritated sigh and set about making staying there with him more frightening than _moving_.

It was not difficult, to his irritation; ridiculously delicate creatures, even Harry would have been more standfast.

Fawkes set the next target soon enough, while his 'assistants' dealt with stragglers and Severus took a moment to watch as the contingent of children swarmed overhead to jostle for position. The Nott child was watching Draco with some intensity, and Parkinson looked mortally wounded that Draco had so much as touched a 'mudfoot', if her glares at Granger and longing looks at Draco were anything to go by.

Of the Old Sky, Malfoy Senior and his kind, many had children of the current generation, born in the height of war when the Dark Lords forces were dizzy with victory after victory. It would not go amiss to warn the Boy-Who-Lived of his foes, but to tell Harry that he had anything to fear, here? His chest grew cold; it could wait until Harry's blood-oxygen capacity reached normal levels, Severus could not bear the horror of seeing Harry choke on his own fear again, as hard as the war may have made him.

No, it would be _Draco_ who would need the warning. For now, many did not know what manner of man Harry was, but Draco had the weight of his name's legacy on his shoulders and it was not a light burden. To see him associating with a Weasley would defy expectations and if Harry retained Granger's friendship there would be a planet-born in the mix. Parkinson had personal reasons to spit and hiss at any encroaching romantic interest, but she would not be the only one to take note and be displeased with the Scion of Malfoy.

Severus cursed quietly to himself as the first year he was minding disintegrated into a gibbering mess, repeating that he was afraid of heights, over and over. "By the _stars_ child, THERE IS NO DOWN."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Needless to say, Harry slept well that night. Hedwig had been delighted by Fawkes' exercises, Draco and Ron hadn't had a flaming row more than twice, and Hermione had been able to relax, finally, when helping the red-head learn his Comms homework. She was _weird_, but whatever.

Ron's prediction about chicken had been correct; Harry noted the transition from agricultural to aquicultural foods at dinner. He rather liked the idea that what there were eating had been grown and bred in space, and it didn't hurt that the fish was tender, the potato-like things were peppery and salted and the strange, stringy green stuff tasted like the sea. There was brief speculation about the little whats-it's that laid the table, but Draco and Ron actually ganged up on the two, naive planet-raised and explained.

Later, after only an hour or so in the common room where they had had their briefing, Harry had headed to bed, Hedwig already falling asleep against his chest.

The large, upwards curving corridor was mostly empty, but the laughter and chatter coming from the various public spaces meant that it was far from quiet. He walked slowly, stroking Hedwig and half listening to conversations, but not truly paying attention to what they were saying.

He descended into their little dorm, finding only Blaise Zabini sitting in a half-twilight, and watched as his feet made swirling patterns of light on the carpet. It was mesmerising, but not enough to catch more than idle attention as he made for his bed; Flight training would begin tomorrow, and Harry had a feeling he would need the sleep.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

In the morning, the boys were buzzing; Flight class would be that afternoon. Ron and Draco started out early with an argument about which Quidditch position was the best. As far as Harry could tell, Neville was beyond nervous and he kept checking something on his data pad that glowed red and made him more and more jittery. His one attempt to ask Neville something resulted in a nervous tic and a dropped data pad. He didn't try again, though Hedwig was looking longingly at the locust colony Neville kept for Trevor.

Blaise, Crabbe and Goyle were still mysteries, really, but even they were bright-eyed and excited. It took the deathly boredom of History of Space-Flight a whole quarter of an hour to subdue the class into sleep; Harry couldn't _believe_ how dull Binn's was, and he wasn't even in the room! The faintly see-through projection never turned to look at them again, once class had started, and the monotonous drone of his voice was making him sleepy.

Three-fifths of the class was asleep by the end and Harry had spent the last half-hour avoiding listening, himself. Hermione was scowling at them all, and Draco was looking superior as he saved his perfunctory notes, but Neville, Ron, and the boy from the dorm-next-door, Seamus, were fast asleep, while Hermione's roommate, (Rosemary? No, Lavender.) was wedged in her chair a little more delicately, but also sleeping. He could only see the backs of the rest of the class, but most of them were floating in their chairs, listlessly or talking quietly to a neighbour.

He had a feeling that if they turned up to Professor Snape's class like this, he'd gut them, as gentle as the man was with Harry's personal weaknesses.

When the chime went for the end of class, Harry was surprised by the sudden rush of movement as people jerked out of their stupors and raced for the door. There wasn't much walking going on, that was for sure; Ron was showing his upbringing and making no concession to 'down' at all.

Only half the class was headed inwards, towards the spine to Professor Snape's class, Harry's dorm for the boys and Hermione's for the girls. The rest, of whom he knew the name of only one, Zacharias Smith, were headed for Comms.

It wasn't a long route today, though they had been warned that the modules moved about periodically, and they soon joined another group outside an airlock. Instead of heading straight in, like they had for other classes, they had to wait outside, because the bulkhead door was locked.

"Oh Draco! It's wonderful to see you, isn't this timetable simply _terrible!"_ Harry's head spun at the squeal, finding one of the sneering girls from Comms hanging onto Draco's arm. Parkley? Parklin?

"Pansy. Good morning." Draco replied, a little coolly, and pulled his arm away. "I'm finding no issue with it myself."

Something Harry did find a little strange was that Crabbe, Goyle and Blaise had gravitated to the group forming around the blonde. He retreated to where Ron and Hermione were queuing up, feeling a little uncertain about how Draco was going to act. Given their discussion, Harry suspected there was a lot going on here, more than he was aware of.

"Bloody Purists. I'll put up with Malfoy, for you Harry, but he's pushing it, talking to _them_." Ron muttered, glaring at the group. Hermione was nose deep in her tablet, but her eyes weren't moving, as if she was listening to them instead.

"I think he's got appearances to keep up; would your dad be pleased if you started associating with his enemy?" Harry asked quietly,

Ron didn't have time to answer as the door opened with a quiet hiss, revealing Professor Snape, in full black uniform, standing in the airlock.

"In, all of you." He barked, glaring at those who weren't in line. "Pets stay in the airlock. Your fermentation tanks have been placed in the racks on the spineward wall, retrieve them immediately. Move!"

There was a scramble as people with pets set them in the cubbies while the airlock cycled to a slightly higher pressure, popping Harry's ears. Hedwig had apparently had enough of being away from Harry, though and wouldn't let go of his finger until he had plied her with food. He was the last through into the classroom and got one of Snape's lesser glares for his trouble. He double-timed it to his ferm-tank, and quickly found a desk near Neville, behind Hermione. Draco was over with the people Ron had called 'Purists', but his face was a cold mask again and Harry couldn't tell if he was being political of annoyed.

Tension was high throughout the lesson and Harry could feel it wearing him down; he stirred, chopped, ground and measured to Snape's instructions, and his gel, a simple one for treating burns, came out as it should. However, by the end of the lesson, he had to linger, had to let the others go ahead of him because he needed something from the Professor, something he had never asked for before.

Once they were alone, Harry looked to the deck beneath his feet and took a deep breath. He heard Hedwig scuttling across the room to him and her warm fur against his throat gave him the courage he needed. Slowly, because he wasn't sure if his Professor would understand, he edged closer and put one hand on his lapel, head down and limbs trembling just enough to be visible.

In an equally slow moment, Snape gathered Harry into the hug he needed.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

It only took half a minute for Ron and Draco's arguing to become audible, but half a minute was enough, and Snape helped him get his boots back to the metal. "You have done well, Harry, they're arguing over Quidditch, rather than each other's throats."

"Draco's trying, sir, he... he's going against his dad," Harry mumbled, sniffing halfway through.

"Your cold appears to be coming along..." Snape tipped his head around, briefly touched the glands in his throat and smirked, "You'll be good and infectious by this evening."

"Yesir." He replied with a lopsided smile, "I'll make sure to give it to everyone."

"Indeed. Hold in mind that the one who doesn't get it is most likely the one who gave it to you." Harry blinked twice, then smiled a little.

"Well then, that's good to know, isn't it."

"Leave. You have minions to arbitrate." Snape said, saying nothing to encourage mischief, this time.

"They're not _minions_..." Harry muttered, mostly to Hedwig, as he left. "See you in Flight, Professor."

XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"For some of you, this will be the most important training you ever receive! Others will be so hopeless, that you will fail this class, and be glad of it! The rest, we shall see."

Fawkes and Madam Hooch were standing just behind Snape; it looked like they'd be helping him out. This time they were gathered, twenty of them, in a hangar and dressed in close-fitting conduction shirts, helmets and gloves. Their arm-guards and kneepads were fitted sideways to cushion a blow to the outside of the joint and they had already run equipment checks. Above and to the side of the gathered platoon, battered machines hung in racks, poised as if to drop out at a moments notice. They were things of struts and braces in a cage about a man-sized engine stock, who's eerie light shifted and rippled.

"Only by flying yourselves can you learn the intricacies of free-space. Only by flying yourself will you earn the right to raise a ship of your own."

The hangar was so big that the outer wall was only one layer of bulkheads away from the Black and it ran the whole width of the ship in one continuous cylindrical space. Through the middle ran the spine itself, ringed in spiralling girders and hung with maintenance equipment.

"The contraptions you see around you are Stratus Twelve's, and you won't learn anything standing around, no matter how fancy your helmet! Pick a beast, and get to it!" Snape finished on a half-shout. The students scattered, each headed for a Stratus. Brief squabbles over ones with fewer scratches popped up, and died down again, while Harry went for one on the end that had yet to be claimed. Fawkes' lesson the day before was making a difference; Snape didn't have to yell at anyone to get them moving this time, but in all honesty, Harry wasn't paying attention to much but his Stratus.

Battered, yes, scratched, yes, but _alive_. The core hummed at half power, already reaching out to Harry through the intervening air. The shell opened for him, the struts shifting out of the way as he reached for the padded seat inside. Like a motorbike, it had a long, flat bench that was heavily padded to cushion chest and belly. Unlike any planet-bound vehicle he had ever seen, five glowing barriers shimmered around the body, one for each limb and one to bind his torso down.

The knowledge was already there; the Stratus knew how it was used, and Harry mounted with a dazed wonder. The barriers around his legs pulled calf and foot close against the core, while he slipped the restrainer over his back. With a quiet thrill, he put his arms in the fields of the remaining barriers and they guided his hands to the controls, before binding his arms safely. The strap over his back tightened and the connection became active; his Interface flared its own particular blue and the Stratus came awake. Its core roared to Harry's ears, begging to be flown, to cut through distance, but it was still locked into the clamps holding it to the spine.

His attempt to release them failed; Poseidon denied him gently enough, and he turned his attention to Fawkes, who was instructing them to disengage and then hold position.

"Go." he called calmly, and Harry was off; Poseidon ceded the clamps to his control and he eased them away from his Stratus' belly.

The class was filled with the clunk and hum of clamps, and the light of the Stratus' engines turned the space blueish. Snape and Fawkes were moving along the line swiftly, looking and commenting on position and control, but a Stratus just in front of Harry was wobbling wildly. The professors had yet to see, and Madam Hooch was too far away; the tiny ship with its delicate pilot was accelerating, straight towards the outer hull.

It was a split second decision, if it could even be called that, and Harry was off; the engine barked beneath him, his hands twisted automatically on the controls and he came alongside the wayward ship. _Neville_.

He looked so utterly terrified, struggling against the restraints and trying to bail out. He was already moving too fast; even if he got out, he would be thrown against the hull, so the Stratus wouldn't let him. Harry couldn't make a barrier large enough to catch him, but _Poseidon _could, with a little direction so he cried out through his Interface; he needed something to connect the two Stratus' hulls together. By cutting the engine and flipping over, like he had in jump class the day before, Harry matched Neville's speed and bound the two hulls together with the barrier Poseidon provided.

A gentle tap on the engines started them slowing down, going gently to full burn over half a second and stopping dead in the air, cutting the engine again. The deceleration was a little strong, but brief and a single deep breath put Harry's head back on strait. As soon as they stopped, Neville's Stratus allowed him to let go and he curled up on himself, sobbing, his hands safely away from the much-abused controls.

Hooch and Snape were getting the rest of the class docked again, while Fawkes was coming alongside already. Harry came out of his adrenalin fuelled tension and slumped loosely in his harness in relief; Neville wouldn't need the Infirmary today, at least. The Pilot gently extracted the terrified child from his ship and Harry found himself benefiting from the soothing nonsense he was muttering.

"Go on now, Mr Potter, dock while we work out the fault that caused this little mess. Five points for excellent presence of mind." Fawkes said softly, disengaging the tether between the two ships. Harry nodded and leaned forwards to just touch the accelerator and coast back to the spine.

Snape was there to meet him, looking a little thunderous, but said nothing until he was docked and the engines powered down again. "Fine flying Mr Potter, but if you ever countermand my instructions again, I will personally restrict you to the infirmary, whether you need it or not." He growled as he ran a diagnostic on Harry's dashboard, his wireless connection buzzing and clicking and beeping in Harry's Interface.

"Yes sir." He replied with a gulp, feeling decidedly anxious about the glower on his teacher's face.

"Just like your father... reckless and irreparably noble... and ridiculously proficient in a boat..." the man muttered irritably but apparently satisfied by his results, giving the Stratus a literal green light, on the top right of the HUD. The whole class was looking around, starting to talk and becoming restless.

Harry was restless himself; flying like that, fast, without thinking; he couldn't wait to move like that again.

"Alright, let's try that again; kindly try to avoid accidental suicide this time." Snape barked, and Harry hunched over his controls with a grin. For the next two hours, they spun through the enormous hangar, gaining speed, making turns, and following Fawkes through projected rings that tickled you mercilessly if you clipped them. The class seemed split fairly evenly between the nervous and the ridiculously excited, though Neville did not return from wherever Fawkes had sent him with Hooch

Nearing the end of the lesson, as the hangar emptied out and everyone else put into dock Harry took a last, excited lap around the spine, whipping past fast enough that the air blasted into his face and he could feel the blood being pressed out of his head. He pulled back at the last minute, using braking jets to slow and come in to dock. The blood thrummed back into his skull and he shook the dizziness off with a grin; it was already better than it had been at the end of August.

He climbed out of the Stratus easily, the restraints retreating with a brief command, and pulled himself towards the lockers. He past Snape on the way; the man gave him a brief nod before turning back to Neville's ship, having no luck finding a malfunction.

Harry had a sneaking suspicion that there hadn't been one; the look on Neville's face had been a bit telling.

As he reached the lockers with the rest of the class, a sneeze that had been building up for what seemed to Harry to be _ages,_ finally erupted and wasn't quite caught in time. Harry sniffed and apologised, but was largely ignored; he smirked and glanced back at Snape, who sent a square of fabric spinning in his direction with a raised eyebrow. Harry caught the handkerchief and wiped his nose before putting his borrowed helmet back.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

That evening at dinner, Hedwig scuttled off unexpectedly; Harry watched her with a slightly concerned frown, but she scampered to the teacher's table and appeared on Hagrid's shoulder. He handed her a little chip of barrier and a morsel of food, which she ate messily, before shooing her back to Harry. She glided most of the way, leaping off Hagrid's shoulder and steering expertly with her tail, then scampered over and up his leg. She shoved the little blue chip into his hand and went for his dinner while he was distracted.

It expanded out from its longest side, as if it was unrolling, revealing a note, inviting him to Hagrid's for tea after lessons the next day. He looked up at the head table and gave his big, bearded friend a 'thumbs up', getting a beaming grin in response.

As he went back to his food, he glanced along the table at Neville; the third in a line of such looks. He _looked_ fine, and dean and Seamus were apparently talking about something interesting to keep his attention, but Harry couldn't get the look on his face, that fear, out of his mind... Reluctantly, he turned back to his food, just in time to rescue Hedwig from a toppled glass of blue juice.

She looked terribly pleased with herself and leant down from his hold and licked at the growing puddle, while Draco sighed heavily and tapped on the table. One of the little robots came up through the serving hole in the middle of the table to clean up the mess.


	21. Halloween

_AN: It's been a while, and this is a basic, un-Beta'd chapter, but i hope you enjoy it anyway, and, fingers crossed, a few reviews and follows might kick the muse back into gear! Sorry it's a cliffhanger. _

* * *

><p>Chapter Twenty One: Halloween.<p>

Ron ended up tagging along on his visit to Hagrid; Draco turned his nose up, muttering about appearances. Hedwig led the way as they followed a guiding light along the spine and then out in to the bowels of the ship; the speck of blue was proving to be game for cat and mouse and she raced, glided and parachuted after it excitedly.

"Scabbers' ain't _half _as interesting. I mean, look at him!" The rat, which as far as Harry knew was _just_ a rat, was an unidentifiable lump in Ron's top pocket.

"Maybe he should go on a diet, he's a bit..." Harry raised an eyebrow.

"Blame Percy for that; he was his before he got promoted to prefect. Mum got him a Cameerot." Ron grumbled, buttoning Scabbers' pocket closed again. Harry wasn't entirely sure what a 'cameerot' was, but patted Ron on the shoulder in a commiserating way, anyway.

Hagrid's workspace, for want of a better word, was five minutes' walk from the habitat ring and right at the spine. This far back, the hum of engines was tangible and the spine had begun to get crowded with thick conduits for power, fuel, coolant and other things that Poseidon wouldn't tell them about. Only one face of the octagonal tube was clear of cables and they were using that one to walk down. Unfortunately, it was also the one that held the doors, so when they reached Hagrid's, 'down' looked like a long drop into a murky dark of pipes and steam.

"'Arry! O'er here. Who's yer friend?" They heard from behind the bulkhead at their feet. Harry crouched so he could get a grip on the edge of the hatch and swung himself in, re-orienting so the flattest bit of the new space was 'down'. Hagrid waved them over to a great big, hulking, steaming machine that thunked and clunked at regular intervals.

"Hullo, Hagrid! This is Ron, my dormmate." Harry said, grinning into Hagrid's beard as the man swept him up into a hug. He clung to the man's coat so he didn't float away when the giant released him, and shifted his grin to Ron.

"Uh, hi. Nice to meet you?" the redhead responded, looking a little wide eyed.

Hagrid's hand eclipsed his entire head when the giant ruffled his hair. "Now, lads, come an' meet Fang." Harry made his way back to the floor and they peered interestedly around Hagrid as he stuck his head into an open space in the middle of the machinery and bellowed;

"Fang, yeh old mutt! Out yeh come!"

Harry brushed Hedwig's fur down as she startled and watched the shape lolling out of the steam towards them. It had long legs, tucked under its body like a mammal, but shaped like a lizards, and a pelt of fine feathers. Its hands and feet were grasping and soft like a chameleon and a bluntly forked tongue flapped merrily out of its mouth. Its tail was stubby and stiff, and wagged happily as it shoved its blunt muzzle into Hagrid's hand. The feathers on its head were downy and soft, almost as fine as fur, and its eyes had square pupils that disappeared between eyelids heavy with bliss as Hagrid scratched it behind what looked like an ear.

"Righ' then, lets 'ave a cuppa tea, then. C'mon lads."

He led them to a room full of the strangest things, like boxes of nuts and bolts made of glass and bunches of some sort of plant tethered to racks. They drank tea out of battered cups with lids and talked about nothing in particular.

Fang clambered around them, dopey and drooling and looking longingly at Hagrid's cakes. The two boys were only too happy to feed them to him after cracking their teeth against their golden-brown and utterly deceptive crusts.

"'ere now, you met Triton yet? I tol' im he migh' see ye around."

Harry hadn't and looked slightly upset; "I'm sorry; Professor Sprout mentioned him, but I'm not allowed in Hydroponics on my own until Christmas, and I don't know where his rooms are-"

"'ere now, 's all righ'! Let me tell yeh about-"

And they sat until dinner, and Hagrid told them stories about people they might never meet, but who sounded awesome to the two eleven-year-olds.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Draco's alliances were not going to plan; the Parkinson girl was sharp enough to grasp what he fed her and in awe of his name to boot, but Nott, Greengrass and the Flint Conglomerate were unwilling to buy into his speeches. Word was spreading that Malfoy's Heir was allying with Potter, rather than the other way around.

Crabbe and Goyle still stood by him; trying to be both unstoppable force and immovable object. It was comforting, and Blaise remained quietly on his side, making the dorm safe enough. It would have been the ultimate mark of defeat to go to the Pilot because he was, because _Harry_ was threatened by politics.

Fortunately, his dealings with the Flint family were still civil. He shuddered as unobtrusively as possible and flicked his eyes across the common room to Marcus; sixth-year, Pilot, Quidditch Captain for the Serpens Team, and son of his Fathers 'allies'. Flint's sway over the other Skyblood 'Snakes' would determine whether Draco was accepted by them or thrown in cold-storage.

"Of course, he's been staying with Professor Snape for the holidays, I can't possibly imagine that has fostered any affection for mudders," He drawled, continuing on from his previous statement, weaving a picture of Harry that he seriously hoped didn't go right over his audience's head.

Half an hour of wheedling and nose lifted in the air and serious looks and he'd had _enough_. He hadn't realised how utterly obnoxious he sounded when he didn't stop to listen. By Orion, he would always stop to listen to Harry, nearly everyone did, and if he could work out how the Potter managed _that_, he was pretty sure he'd be able to take over the entire 'system.

He scooped up Jarek, who had been camouflaged against the arm of his chair, and made his excuses.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

"I think it _is_ working, it's hard to tell, really." Draco said, supervising from his desk chair as Hedwig and Jareck played on his bunk.

"I can't believe this... I'm sure there was never this much_ fussing _back on Earth." Harry muttered, looking adorably confused. He was sitting with his back to the bulkhead between Draco and Ron's cubbies, elbows on his upraised knees. The greater part of their dorm was asleep, though Goyle was watching something on his 'pad, if the flickering lights were anything to go by.

"You can hardly expect much the Skyblind, Harry; can you even imagine it? Not being able to feel Poseidon?" Draco said, Harry lifted his head and looked at the blonde with sad amusement.

"Bloody hell, Draco, you great big idiot; of _course _I can imagine it!" Draco's head snapped up and he blinked in closed-mouthed shock, "I lived in a normal house, Draco; four walls, a terabite connection, one datapad in the entire building. No AI, no ships, no barriers. It was quiet, and cold, and I never even knew there was something missing."

Hedwig scampered up his side to curl around his throat and press her hands to his cheek, chirring quietly; something in his voice had upset her. Draco looked shocked and caught completely off guard; Harry felt suddenly exposed, raw, and he ducked his head, hopping off the bed.

"'night Draco, I'll see you in the morning."

Harry left Draco looking blindsided and feeling a little lost himself; had Severus been there, he would have recognised the mire the boys had wondered into so innocently, a place more frightening and dangerous than the vacuum of space could ever be; introspection.

For an adult, looking into your own head could be hard enough, _traumatizing_ enough that vast tracts of humanity never realise _why_ they do the things they do. For a child it could be simultaneously simpler and more overwhelming; it is one thing to know with utter certainty that you want to be a doctor or a pilot when you grow up, and another to have that certainty beaten into you by the death of a parent, or by war. For Harry, realising what he had gained by going with Hagrid had crept over him since the first of August and that was fine, it was seeing what he hadn't had that hurt. Like the silhouette, or the inverse; the paper left after you've cut out a star.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

By the end of October, Harry had really made a name for himself in Flight training. He raced through the air like he had been there his whole life, chasing the bouncy projectiles that Fawkes hurled from the Spine and dodging other students like they were standing still.

One Thursday, Harry noticed the spectators. A young man wearing the red of a Pilot cadet stood next to McGonagall, watching him and looking hungry when he made a particularly difficult turn. A green target ball zipped past his flight path and Harry twisted sharply in his restraints to direct his Stratus after it, his attention captured.

That evening as he and Ron shuffled into the mess hall behind Draco, Ron's brothers introduced him to Oliver, captain of the Lion's Quidditch team.

"But, I'm a _first _year! I can't play; I'm not even a cadet yet!" Harry protested, glancing anxiously up at the teachers table but relaxing once he spotted Snape. The mess was decorated in orange and black and it took Harry a moment to identify his doctor in the unfamiliar decor; Halloween, apparently, was one of those things that made it through re-entry.

"Look, let me talk to McGonagall, we'll see what we can do. I can't let you end up in Serpens, not with talent like that!" The Captain wheedled, and Harry dithered over wanting to be Good and really, _really_ wanting to fly more. In the end, Oliver gave up on waiting for a reply, and dashed off to his table to talk to other people wearing the lion pin on their Pilot-red collars .

"Honestly, there's no chance Professor McGonagall will go for that; I would know, my Father tried to get me on the Serpens team before we even arrived, and if his money can do it, then one wheedling Lion won't manage." Draco sneered, imagining Harry with the Lion pin on his collar and finding the image wanting.

They settled onto the first year table, amidst the babble and excitement of children with access to rather more sugar than usual. Ron was already stuffing his face; Harry and Draco carried on their conversation while loading their plates.

"What are you looking at me like that for? I _know_ she's not going to go for it, but I _love_ flying, Draco! It's the best thing I've ever done!" Harry whined, gesturing expansively with the pumpkin curry spoon. He put it back in the bowl hurriedly when Hedwig started scrambling down his arm. He caught her before her tail dragged in any food and hauled her back in. He gave her some of her own food and settled her back on his shoulders firmly.

"You're telling me? I've been flying since I was seven. In all seriousness, Harry, I-"

There was a sudden commotion from the other end of the hall and the students all went quiet, their heads craning 'round. The Defence Professor was half running, half stumbling into the Mess;

"Troll! Troll in Engineering! Thought you..." Professor Quirrel staggered down between the Pilots and Engineers table, mouths fell open all through the room and the teachers shot to their feet. "Thought you... ought to know..."

The teacher fell over in a dead faint, but the cold feeling in Harry's Interface didn't fade and he stared mistrustfully at the pile of teaching robes in the middle of the isle. All around him, screams and chaos erupted, the dim orange light of the decorations blinked into harsh white emergency lighting and strong voices struggled to overcome the cacophony. Prefects gravitated towards the teachers table, some grouping around the three youngest years defensively, but for all that they looked like they knew what they were _supposed_ to be doing, they didn't look comforted by it.

Draco's anxious tugging on his sleeve drew Harry's attention back to their little group; the first years were split into two, those who knew what was going on, and those who had absolutely no idea. "Draco, what's a troll?" Harry asked confidentially. He would have whispered but he had no illusions that anything less than a shout would be heard.

"Big, ugly, slimy, black, space _viruses_, that feed on electrical gradients, travelling through the computers! If they get into the engines, we won't make the jump on the weekend, and if they get into the spine, we'll lose _hydroponics_!" Draco hissed back and Hermione, standing near Harry and crowding close, went deadly white.

"A plague, Harry; like the locusts of old." She said with forced levelness, her grip on his arm making his fingers tingle. "Dumbledore'll sort it out. We're going to be fine." Her conviction was astounding, but trembled around the edges.

"SILENCE!" The headmaster's voice boomed out and was obeyed without question; the quiet was almost as shocking as the sudden uproar had been a moment before.

"Fawkes, Prefects; take the students to the dormitories please. Teachers, with me." He swept out of the mess hall, uniform billowing out behind him as the Professors and Hagrid scuttled along in his wake.

"To your rooms, everyone. Come now, you all know the way." Fawkes said, looking flustered for the first time since they'd arrived on Poseidon.

Harry and Hermione soon found themselves flanked by Weasley's on all sides; Draco only just managed to stay with them by holding on to Harry's sleeve. Ron was white and shaking, tugging them along by his grip on Hermione's hand. Percy headed for section three, while the Twins peeled off for section six, running with the crowd.

"Down the ladders! Prefects first!" Fawkes shouted over the din of frightened children. On either sides of the already packed full lifts, hatches two meters wide opened up. The lifts could take big lumps of people, but a solid stream climbed down the ladders. Prefects and upper years literally leaped onto the rungs, shimmying down effortlessly, and stood at the bottom, plucking the comparably tiny first years off and sending them after Fawkes.

"Initiating lock in ten seconds. Batten down. Batten down." Poseidon's voice boomed through the corridors. Harry hadn't heard it before, except in the strange, in-between space in the back of his head when he got a timetable update, but it was immediately recognisable and held all the authority and weight of Dumbledore himself. Fawkes had vanished up the curve of the 'ring, but his voice echoed back, garbled by the curve and mass of students.

"You heard the Lady; strap in!" Percy hustled the four first years, not even noticing that he was man handling a Malfoy, to the emergency strap-in points all along the walls.

"Five!"

All around the dorm level, doors were closing, the hatches shuttered behind the last students and students scrambled to get tucked into the harnesses.

"Four."

Percy saw to all of his charges, and Hermione, who wasn't, before even looking for a harness for himself.

"Three."

He found one on the other side of the hall and headed for it, but instead of straping himself in, he pulled _Neville_ off the ladder and pushed him into the barrier straps.

"Two. One. LOCK."

Harry's stomach fell out of the bottom of his shoes, just like it did when the rode the lift up put of the 'ring and into the Spine; the ring was stopping spinning. The metal they were strapped to shuddered under the spin breaks and the illusion of gravity fell away. Loose items of clothing floated up around students ears, pets chattered and drifted before attaching themselves to their owner's chests. Percy pulled himself to a harness and clung on, pulling it over his shoulders as he did a visual check of the section.

"Section three; secure!" He called, and other voices echoed him, some slower than others, but eventually everyone was confirmed.

"Well done, everyone; the Professors are looking for the infection now, it'll take a while to get away from Engineering." Fawkes called over the intercom; he must have been on the other side of the ring, where the upper years lived.

Harry realised he still had Hermione's hand on one side, and Draco holding his sleeve on the other, so he shook his arms lightly and gave them each a tremulous grin. Before he could start speaking though, Fawkes' voice rattled through the 'ring, piercing and frantic;

"INTERFACES OFF! NOW!"

Harry jerked in surprise; that had been loud and in two-tone, one inside his head and the other ringing in the metal corridor. Percy was the first, scrambling at the back of his neck and cradling his battered old Interface in his hand. Ron and Draco weren't that far behind, but Harry lingered; he didn't want to take it off, the world would go quiet and cold again, and that was something he really didn't want.

But the world was already going quiet, with the flags of other connected student's going out, but there was something loud, something terrible and roaring and hissing in the distance. Like the roar of the empty void, dark and hissing and terrible, loud and god, so _loud_!

Harry twisted and flailed, scrabbling for the release on his Interface, but as he turned, he spotted Hermione, eyes wide, but pupils tiny, her face ashen white and fingers trembling, frozen as they reached for her Interface, but getting no closer to actually managing. Her digital presence fluttered like a shining candle, and beyond her, others, so frightened and frozen with the urge to hide-hide-hide but unable to take their 'eyes' off the threat barrelling down on them through the bones of the servers.

Crying out, because it was so loud, and so frightening and so _familiar_, Harry left his Interface alone and threw himself between it and her, his mind reaching out and saying 'no; you cannot have them!'

He could feel it straining, but his hasty shield held, the virus battering against them, but not quite sweeping them away. It _hurt_, but he could handle it.

One by one, the remaining Interfaces disappeared from the network, all but Harry, because he could feel it; the moment he stopped, the _second_ he diverted his attention to pull the release, it would all come crashing down, into his head. Fear froze him, it had made him strong, but now he couldn't think; so much of his processing power was bent to keeping the virus out of his Interface, he didn't have any left to find a way out.

Strong and deprived of targets, the troll heaved against Harry's pathetic, child's shield and Harry couldn't hold. It crumpled.


	22. Chapter 22: Quarantine

_AN: Here you go! Don't worry if the coded bit is confusing, keep at it; it shows how Harry fights the Troll, but the Troll's code is... indecipherable. Good luck!_

_Entirely unbetad, sorry. Probably full of mistakes. :P_

**Chapter 22: Quarantine **

The chaos was immediate; all the students knew the word 'Troll', or would within the next thirty seconds. Fear and disorder spread through the Mess and Severus resigned himself irritably to running drills over the next few weeks. He sought out his godson and Harry in the crowd, standing by the Head table he had a decent view of the tops of their heads; they were being converged upon by redheads. A fine use of the Weasley family, he supposed.

Severus followed the Headmaster through the crowd, sneering at Quirrel on the way past; the man was as useful as a blown gasket.

If the virus was in Engineering, it would be headed for the starpoint in the FTL drive - high voltages, fast moving components – and he drew up alongside Flitwick and McGonagall, in the Headmaster's wake.

"We have hours before it reaches the servers, but this evacuation is far from fast enough; organising on without gravity _or _Interfaces does not bear imagining." He muttered, only loud enough to be heard by his fellow Department Heads.

"I quite agree! McMurdo, hurry _along_!" McGonagall said, half sotto-voice and half shouted to her Prefect with his red uniform, as he led the four years of uniformed Pilots towards the door. The lieutenant nodded and harried his charges into a more efficient block. Severus' own Engineers were doing much the same, and he rewarded Flint with a nod; engineers did tend to be more... restrained than pilots.

Once they were out of the Mess, the professors – more like the Lieutenant-Colonels of their rank than teachers at that moment – filed into an elevator out of the ring and magnetized themselves to the floor as gravity faded away.

"Severus, if you would take the breakers fore of Engineering. Filius, halt ring rotation on Fawkes' mark. McGonagall, take the breakers between the servers and Control, Pommona, with me."

The moment the lift arrived in the hub, they were off in separate directions; Dumbledore heading for Control and the largest connections to Poseidon's sentient mainframe with Sprout on his heels, with coding already flowing under her fingers; Filius went for the manual breaker between the motors spinning the ring and the power conduits, a troll could accelerate ring rotation if it got its code into those motors; McGonagall followed Dumbledore to cut the rear half of the ship off digitally from the front, Poseidon's sanity must be maintained at all costs and loosing propulsion voluntarily, for a few hours, was a small price.

Severus himself was joined by the remaining teachers and Poseidon's running crew as they arrived from the far corners of the ship; Shacklebolt looked appropriately _furious_, while Tonks' hair was flashing rapidly through the full range of reds and blues. Diggle was understandably on edge; as Head of Engineering he would have a great deal of work to do, even if the managed to contain the virus before it destroyed the FTL drive.

Fortunately, Severus' positions as Senior Medical Officer and Lieutenant-Colonel put him firmly in charge despite Shacklebolt's nominally higher 'Colonel' rank and they followed smoothly as he stalked towards Engineering.

"How did it get on board, Shacklebolt?" he snapped. The Head of Security was supposed to _prevent_ thing like this happening, not respond rather belatedly.

"It came in on the Package, professor; we don't know how it fitted, but it did."

Severus gave him a sharp glare; not everyone in their group had the security clearance to know about that. Kingsley just raised an eyebrow back and Severus could admit, now was probably not the time.

"We will talk about this later," he growled. "Tonks! Isolation protocol 5-7-9-2. Manual input only; so help me, if I have to pull even one of you out of Interface at this point, _I will bunk you for a month._"

The barely-out-of-training Captain was up to the task, but that didn't make it easy. The virus would be tearing through systems, consuming and reprogramming any processing power it could corrupt. If it started in on the systems that generated isolation protocols themselves, they would lose whole sections of Poseidon to the manual breakers. She and Kingsley hooked their belts to a terminal and begun activating the protocol, their Interfaces dark.

"Diggle! Cut off wireless transmission, I'll take the 'spike myself." Snape ordered, latching on to a console at the junction between the school sector and Engineering.

"Yes sir." The dumpy, engine-grease-smeared man vanished around a corner and the sound of opening wall panels echoed back.

A flat voice reached them over the comms; "'ring immobilised, Fawkes is logging them now."

"Copy. Starting deletion spike in five."

Severus linked in with his Interface, connecting his mind more fully to the ships systems. They were still, eerie as the marching progress of the isolation protocol shut off and disconnected processing units in offices, power distribution, Diggle's lab; the wave of quiet spread across the inside of his head relentlessly and he held himself poised, a packet of code ready to fling at the troll when it broke cover and made for the dataport in the spine.

It never came.

The entirety of Engineering, from the FTL drive to the fusion reactor went dark, and the troll never came.

"It's not here..." He broke the deep connection and hooked into communications with a frantic, messy spray of code. "_It's not in Engineering_. Clear the servers! GET EVERYONE OFF THE SERVERS!"

He scrambled once the message was sent, his Interface leaping off the back of his neck, leaving him feeling cut off, vulnerable but safe. Kingsley and Tonks looked up at him in frozen horror, the backs of their necks exposed and naked.

"They'll never make it in time, you _know_ they won't!" Kingsley yelled, scrambling to finish his coding. Severus was already pushing off for the habitat ring.

Severus cursed, soaring towards the lifts and racing the progressive shutdown as Poseidon bellowed around him, angry and frustrated; the ships protocol wouldn't make it in time and with his crew rapidly vanishing off the servers, he started broadcasting over the intercom. Alarms, snippets of code, raw binary clicks; it was chaos. But, as Severus clung to a take hold in a lift travelling at double speed, the noise resolved into a string of commands;

_¦u se. . user: Harry~Potter: access . denied . deniedd-d-d-deniedeni . i . ied¦_

_#PKT~RAKTE^DSSJ%O%IMTKCTPTHQ#_

_¦initiate . protocol~protego : suc-c-FAILc-cess¦_

_#GGATGC P~H-¦ITLZ99{DELETE}#_

_¦restricting . port~use r: haRrypottER : aaaacessccess . DENIED¦_

_#ACTN[DELETE~UNSUCCESSFUL]%79%ASSAULTP~H . #_

_¦CorRupuruPTIOpuuUption . deTTtTTttttected . ¦_

_¦user: PILOT~Fawkes: requesting . port¦_

_#ACTN[ASSAULT~SUCCESSFUL]ITLZ{OVERLOAD}#_

_¦access!granted!granted!GRANTED¦_

_¦INITIALIZING . DELETE . {CODE~_SECTUM~CODIS}

_VIRUS . PURGED . diagnostic: start . . . {processing} . . . _

_ALERT!user: PILOT~Fawkes: unresponsive_

_¦user: HHharryPo ttEr: diss-s - . {connectinging} . {connnneccted} . configggure~port¦ _

_COMMAND: ATuser: HarryPotter: disconnect~user: PILOT_

_¦user: PILOT~Fawkes . disconnected¦_

Severus shot out of the lift, hit the wall and pried it open to pull out the emergency kit inside. Up and down the ring, students were calling out, confused and unused to being without their Interfaces.

"Prefects! Roll-call, now!" he barked, pushing off again, kit slung over his chest. "I want eyes-on on every last first-year! Clearance: Snape, Mike Oscar." The prefects scrambled out of their harnesses as they unlocked and started swinging to check their charges visually.

In the sudden flurry of movement, there was one still pocket, where all eyes were fixed on the shining red and gold of Fawkes' feathered head.

The pilot was slumped loosely in Harry's grip; one tiny white hand held the back of his head and the other clutching his Interface. Smoke drifted in uncanny, bluish grey coils from between Fawkes' feathers. Harry's eyes were wide, staring fixedly into nothing at all but his mouth moved slowly.

"You too, Mr. Weasley; look to your duty." Severus clipped himself next to Harry and the Prefect shook himself and went to a crying first year. "Orion's Beard, Fawkes, what have you done to yourself..." he muttered, prising Harry's hand off the pilots' Interface and giving the shock-cold fingers a brief, comforting squeeze. He hastily tucked the smoking tech into a pocket with his other hand, ignoring the smell of burnt plastic and feathers, and leaned in close to check Fawkes' breathing. At that distance, Harry's mutterings were audible, and heartbreakingly soft:

"It's ok, Fawkes, shh... you're ok... Poseidon says... well done. Shhh, shh..." a child's whisper, full of adrenalin and fear and wonder and the size of the universe.

Fawkes' eyes were open and looking at nothing, his temple resting on Harry's collarbone, but he was breathing. Harsh gasps, full of pain they may have been, but he was _alive_. He flipped Harry's wrist and tucked the fingers of his other hand into Fawkes' carotid to check their pulses; they were both heading rapidly into shock, but their hearts were still going strong, despite the massive electrical charge the troll had thrown at them.

Severus squeezed Harry's hand again before laying it on Fawkes' shoulder and twisted to brush the feathers away from the back of Fawkes' neck. He was already reaching for a burn sealant and his guess was on the mark; where the pilot's Interface had sat, his skin had burned to a shiny, bloody pink, edged in the crisp black of burnt feathers. It disappeared under the bright orange salve, sealed, disinfected and numbed in one swift gesture.

Fawkes shuddered and let out a long breath, his eyes closing and his grip on Harry's harness going abruptly loose.

"Alright... Harry? Look at me, Mr. Potter." It took him a while, but Harry's eyes focused eventually. "Let Poseidon hold on to you for a little longer, Harry. He doesn't want you to be afraid, he's just keeping watch over Fawkes. Do you understand?"

Harry nodded slowly, his eyes drifting down to look at Fawkes.

"Good. !" Severus called the Prefect over, "what are our orders, cadet?"

"Admiral D-D-Dumbledore has called the all clear, sir, we're not to Interface and should put out rooms in lockdown."

"Very good, see to it. I'll be taking Fawkes and Potter to the medical bay; see that the roster is changed."

"Yes sir!"

With communications on hold and Poseidon missing half his systems, the ring was chaotic at best but teachers were beginning to filter in from their emergency posts and take command of the Prefects. McGonagall's voice from the second year section was particularly audible. With Fawkes down for the count, deep in shock, the first years were being wrangled by Prefects alone. They were afraid. Stressed and hysterical, and Severus did not have time for forty terrified children.

And then Harry started humming.

He wasn't particularly tuneful, or loud, but the little hiccupping noises sung into Fawkes' feathers were utterly familiar; Holst's 'The Planets' and the strong, lilting tones of 'Jupiter: bringer of Jollity', a twelve hundred year old piece of music.

It was Poseidon's favourite, had been since he'd been decommissioned from a battle cruiser into a school after the Unity War, the very birth of Spacer kind. Over a thousand years ago.

Harry _couldn't_ have heard it before.

You can't cry without gravity, but, looking at Harry's pale face, his little hands cradling the pilot close...

Quiet spread slowly amongst the first years and the Prefects plucked them out of their harnesses one by one. Severus did the same, unbuckling Harry and wrapping the pair in a shock blanket from his kit. Fawkes sighed and settled quietly with his arms tucked around the humming little boy.

Severus couldn't speak, couldn't think, but procedure he'd followed since before Harry was born carried them through the thinning crowds all the way to the ringside medical bay. Pomfrey met them and helped him guide the pair to a bed, tucked in tight to stop them drifting away.

"He's a Greatship Pilot, Poppy..." Severus mumbled, managing to stress the capital; the adrenalin in his system was crashing rapidly and he chewed numbly on the square of chocolate Pomfrey pressed into his hand.

"Well of course he's a Pilot, who'd you imagine was flying this old ship?"

She didn't get it... Severus gripped her shoulder as she bustled past with her case. "Not Fawkes, _Harry._"

"Don't be silly now, Severus, you've got patients to see to, you can't go into shock yourself."

He shook his head, making an effort to pull himself together and hooking his feet under the floor bar by the bed. "I'm serious, Poppy, half of Poseidon is flowing through his head right now! How else would he sing _that?!_"

The nurse gave him the long look he remembered from his own schooling, and then looked down at Harry and Fawkes, wrapped up together with the entire ship looming over them.

"Well... Good luck keeping that under your hat for seven years." The nurse jammed her own cap on her head and closed the door behind her, shutting him in with Harry's humming.


End file.
